When I became chairman eight months ago, I came with some specific leadership objectives that were influenced by my previous years of research. I arrived eager to enhance my understanding of all aspects of the agency's responsibilities in order to serve as an engaged and effective regulator. I'm grateful for the support of the diligent and dedicated cadre of NRC management and staff as I moved along this learning curve. While there's still more to learn, I'm pleased that the NRC has continued to progress during my transition. Together, we are meeting our regulatory responsibilities. Since my arrival at the NRC, I've joined my colleagues on the commission in keeping an ambitious schedule. I've traveled to operating plants in various regions of the country, and will visit a site under construction later this month. I've spoken extensively with plant management and NRC resident inspectors, as well as state and local government representatives and community groups. I've testified on Capitol Hill and met individually with numerous members of Congress. I've met my counterparts from regulatory organizations overseas, led a U.S. delegation to a major international nuclear safety conference, and assumed the chairmanship of the multinational design evaluation program. Inside the White Flint North Campus, just across the street, my fellow commissioners and I continued to maintain a collegial working relationship, and I'm privileged to get to know many of the NRC staff. My objective as chairman is to lay the groundwork for the agency's continued success in the next quarter century and beyond through addressing what we already understand and using scientific data to inform our best planning and decision-making. So what do we do now? Know now. We're continuing to address lessons learned from Fukushima. Our operating reactor fleet is getting older, with approximately half of it slated to enter a period of extended operation by 2017. Most of the plants are operating well, while two are in extended shutdown as they address specific issues. Construction is underway on several new reactors, and we're applying our regulations to a new generation of designs. We're addressing regulatory issues that span the entire field cycle. We face evolving security threats from a variety of adversaries. We face the challenge of effectively maintaining our core mission in a difficult budget environment. And we have a diverse group of parties who follow our work and seek to maintain an open dialogue with us. As we consider these complex issues, we will be remiss not to draw two important parallels between the first brick and today. First, we once again find ourselves two years removed from a major nuclear accident, working to understand its lessons and incorporate them into meaningful, lasting improvements. Second, and more broadly, the NRC must remain committed to the principle of good regulation that led the NRC to conceive of this conference in the first place, that is, clear, consistent communication with those who are affected by our work. This conference has always been open to the public and draws a broad variety of attendees from industry, federal state, and local government, interest groups, academia, and the international community. Enhancing the NRC's engagement with the public is a high priority for me. I view this conference as a particular source of pride for our agency. I believe our continued commitment to open this in transparency will serve us well as we address the challenges that will shape the agency's next 25 years.


but pray and then we'll just get started. Okay. Father God, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for this day. We thank you for this time, Lord, that we could spend in your presence, Father God. We, yes, Lord, your word declares that the scriptures are, Lord, powerful, Lord, breathed by you and Lord, they're sufficient for equipping a person, Lord, for the good works of Father God. And we thank you for the wisdom in your word, Lord. We thank you for the wisdom that is there in our proverbs and ecclesiastics and, Lord, the wisdom that we can, Lord, put forth in our own lives and apply in our own lives, Father God. We thank you for the principles in your word, Father God. We thank you that Spirit of God, you just breathe life and quicken it to us, Lord. And we thank you for opening our eyes to the Lord immense riches that are there in your word, Father God. And maybe never lose sight of that, Lord. Father, we thank you that it's all there for us to walk in, for us to understand, for us to walk in. And yes, Lord, we thank you for empowering us to walk in that, Lord. And we give you all the praise and glory at this time, even as you've given us this privilege to do it. In Jesus' matchless name, we pray, amen, amen. Okay, so today we'll continue where we left off. Last class, we looked at personal planning, right? And the last section that we looked at was goal setting. And one of the things is that, we could have short-term goals, we could have long-term goals, and also what we can call as life goals. So these are big goals that we as people of God, we as a human being, as a person that we are setting, life goals, these are goals for life. And it's good that we have those because then we can work towards it, okay? Now it seems very, very unspiritual, when we hear some people say, okay, what are your goals? And are you working towards your goals? And you need to have a plan in life and so on. But the fact is that for us as believers, we can involve, invite the Holy Spirit invite God into this whole thing and then proceed to plan and even pursue that plan. So we involve God because God is infinite in his wisdom, he's omniscient, which means that he's all-knowing, he knows the end from the beginning, and he's more than willing to reveal his heart to us. That he's more than willing to reveal his plans and he's more than willing to help us. In fact, James chapter one talks about how if a person is lacking wisdom, we can actually ask God and he will not hold back. But one thing that is required is that we need to ask in faith, okay? That's what we see, right? Let me just quickly read that verse before we start off. So it says that James chapter one and verse five, right? If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally. So when we ask, he gives liberally, meaning the wisdom is given generously liberally, right? Then it says, and without reproach, meaning he's not going to look at you, look at us and say, hey, you don't even know this and you're asking us such a silly doubt, asking such a silly, he's not going to say that. It's without reproach, okay? And it's wisdom that coming from him, right? So it's a good source and what does it say? And without reproach, and it will be given to him. So we lack wisdom, we lack the ability to make certain decisions based on the knowledge, experience or the information that we have. We can ask God that he gives to all liberally, without reproach, it will be given. But only thing is let him ask in faith, verse six. Let him ask in faith with no doubting. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind, for let not that man, suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. So the importance of all the other things, right? We grow in faith and faith is not a formula, faith is a relationship that we journey with him, we walk in faith. So we're able to ask in faith and what will enable us not to be double-minded is when we renew our mind to the truth of God's word, okay? So the natural man, the carnal man, the fleshly man has a way of thinking. But the spiritual man thinks like God because we have the mind of Christ, okay? So in every situation, I love the thoughts of God and that's why we spend time reading the word, we spend time meditating on the word of God. It's not just, it's going to make God favorable to us or we are pleasing God in some way or the other. He's already pleased, right? Because he died for us on the cross while we were yet sinners, so that's the thing. So we don't have to do anything to win the favor of God. But we do it, we read the word, we allow the thoughts of God so that we can be single-minded about the purposes of God. Thoughts are renewed, renovated, changed, in line with scripture. Therefore, we can think in faith, we can act in faith, okay? So we see this important instruction here. So in all our planning, in all our goals setting, like life goals, we can go ahead in faith and do it. And not be afraid, right? Many times we, in our prayers also, sometimes we hold back because we're not sure, hey, is it the will of God that I'm asking this? We're not sure, maybe it's something to do with healing, maybe it's something to do with, we're not sure. When we're not sure, we cannot ask in faith. We don't have the confidence. But here, the Lord says, ask that your joy may be full. Right? The Lord Jesus said, ask that you're, is it to not ask anything, ask that your joy may be full? And when we ask for wisdom, we have the scriptural backing for it. So wisdom, even when we plan, and it's something that we can do, when we make life plans, we ask in faith, we ask for wisdom, involve God in the process, and we can plan, okay? So we don't have to be too minds about it. When I'm planning, maybe there's some of, you haven't had a doubt, okay? Is it a spiritual thing to plan? Is it a spiritual thing? Am I going against being led by the Spirit? Yeah, you can plan two ways. We can plan according to the flesh, plan according to the Spirit. But we who have known the Lord, who are spiritual, we can plan according to the Spirit, okay? So life goals. So the thing about life goals, when we, any goal that we are setting, it's good to review it from time to time. It's good to go back to it and review it. What does a review mean? Review means that you take another look, okay? It just means read and view, another look at it. And when you take another look at it, after some time has passed, okay? You plan and say, okay, this year I want to do this, this and this, you know, these three things. So we start with January, we have January is over, February is over, March, you know, and that's a time to take another look to review and go back and look at the plan and say, you know, am I working anything towards it? Am I accomplishing anything towards this?  It's good to go back and review those plans and say, okay, yes, the environment has changed. There are, you know, these are limitations. So what adjustments do I need to make to the plan? Okay, I review and, you know, we can review and make changes. As also in life, right? Okay, so now let's move on to the next chapter about certain skills. Okay, so we looked at personal goal setting as a skill and also interpersonal communication skills, chapter five, interpersonal communication skills. Now, God has created us to be social beings in the sense to be with people, to communicate with people and so on. So that is why, you know, he instituted all these social structures like we see, you know, marriage as a design by God. We see family as something designed by God. We see church as something designed by God. And in fact, it's referred to as the body of Christ. And the parallel is that just like a physical body as members, we're also members in the body. So each member is connected in some way or the other, right? So here we see that we are members, we are social beings and we are created to communicate. We are created to communicate with God. We are created to communicate with people. So it's important to understand that, that this is how we are designed. Now, some of us might communicate more, some of us might communicate very less, but nevertheless, we are created to communicate, okay? So what does it mean to communicate? Okay, what is communication? I remember one incident, you know, when I went for doing my PG for my post graduation and which was a management course. So when I went for that, the admission process was, okay, you'll have a group discussion, then you'll have an interview. And of course, you have a written exam, group discussion interview, right? So those who clear the written exam will have to go for the group discussion interview and then the selection process happens. So in the group discussion, the thing is everybody wants to be heard, right? You want to be seen as person who is wise and good things to say. So everybody's trying to power their way in and say the things that they want to say, okay? So everybody's talking at the same time and it's like, at one point, everybody's saying something. Nobody's listening, right? And it's supposed to be a discussion, right? I don't know if some of you have, you know, attended or been part of a group discussion where everybody's saying, because the objective is, it's a selection process. I better say something. I want to be noticed. I want to be heard.  Republic TV or NDTV and some of those, some of the things, you know, some of the programs where there's a group, there's a panel and they're discussing some, you know, some hot topic or some controversial things or just everyday politics. We see that everybody's got a strong opinion. Everybody's shouting and saying things and nobody's listening, right? Except we, you know, on this side of the tele, viewing that program and we're trying to figure out what is everybody saying? Like, so communication, the question is, is that communication? Making a lot of noise. Always speaking, is that communication? Well, the answer is no. Communication, you know, if you look at it, communication is a two-way process, which means that it involves sending out information. Okay, it involves a medium or a method or a vehicle for sending that communication. Like, for example, now, you know, when I'm speaking, we are using this digital medium. We are doing this, you know, online and I think it's something called a voice over internet protocol, VOIP, voice over internet, where you hear my voice and the technology is such that it's transmitted to you. And it could be newspaper, it could be social media, whatever, you know, there is a medium that is involved and there is a receiver, okay? There is a sender, there is a receiver and communication is two-way, okay? It's not the same as a one-way thing.  Let's say, for example, the newspaper, it's one-way, right? Unless you choose to write back to the newspaper, which I don't know if that happens, you know, majority of the time it does not. Like, maybe some people do that. But it's not, it's a one-way connection. It's a one-way transmission of information. So, but communication is two ways, is both ways. It involves speaking, it involves receiving that, it involves listening to that information and also it involves responding to that information, which means that I, as a speaker, I speak something, the other person, you, you listen and then you speak and I also take time to listen to what you have to say. Okay, so that's communication. So, there is sharing, in other words, of information and it becomes common, okay, to both of us. So, it is, which means that we are communicating that information is now common to both of us, right? So, it can be, you know, if we are, if you're the recipient of the communication, it means that we listen to the information that is being said and we, you know, we understand and reflect and check about it and discern it and then maybe if you're not understood, we ask questions. You know, you see, that's the whole communication process. So, it's an active process. It involves all these elements in communication, right? So, now, to be effective in communication is very, very important, okay? In all, in all of, you know, different social settings, you know, you could be a working professional in office, you could be, you know, you could be in college, you could be studying something or even, you know, basic things at home, right? When we say there's no communication, that means that, you know, something has happened there, that home.  The husband and wife have had a fight, right? And there's been drop silence, you walk in, you can almost feel the tension, right? There's no words spoken, there's no word nothing. It's like, it's quiet, full tense, right? So, well, what makes communication effective, okay? What makes communication a success, okay? So, these are the skills that we can learn. This is a skill that we can develop and it's good, it's a valuable skill. So, we can communicate well to those who are listening and then, and we can actually convey certain things. And, you know, as people in ministry, you know, in the, or preparing for ministry, what are we, you know, we've been given a great message. Our life is, of course, needs to be a strong message, but we've been given a message that is to communicate the gospel, right? That is to communicate the message of God. We are called, you know, in other words, scripture says that we are called to be ambassadors of Christ, ambassadors of Christ, you know, an ambassador of a nation is a representative of the nation, is a spokesperson for the nation, okay, for a particular country. And so, we have been called to be ambassadors of Christ. We are called, we are looked at as ambassadors of Christ. So, we need to, you know, improve on our skill or upgrade our skill of communication so that what we share is understood the way we share, okay? And we can communicate this all important message. We can share this, we can present this life-changing message in a clear manner, okay? And the truth of God's word, not just the gospel, but everything that is there in the word, instruction for life, the deeper life, the gifts, everything that is there, we can present it or communicate it, share it well, okay? So, it's a very important skill to develop, okay? Now, to be a master in communication is going to be a process, it's going to take some time, but, you know, if we keep at it, we can certainly develop our skill of communication.  Yes, there are certain jobs, there are certain things that require you to maybe, let's say, you know, design certain things, okay?   You know, so the importance is on that skill, right? To be able to design something. But also, you need to understand that, even as a software engineer who's just doing coding or, you know, or a designer, the work will involve interacting with people, right? So it's never, without people, the work will involve, you know, interacting with people. You know, as a doctor, a doctor talks to the patient, asks the patient, you know, what is it? How are you feeling? You know, what is wrong? Trying to understand what the patient is saying, try to understand the symptoms so that doctor can actually make a decision, okay? This is the treatment, okay? This is the line of treatment or the medicines and everything, what to do, what not to do. To communicate that again to the patient, you know, after having listening. So that the patient understands and then does what is required to get well, okay? So you see that any line of work, there is a need for good communication and in any line of work and in industry, definitely, you know, to be able to communicate. So, so if we are at that line, all of us can, you know, improve, right? In this, maybe, no matter how we look at ourselves and maybe as great communicators there's always something that we can improve.  It takes some certain simple things to put in place and it'll make a big change, right? So here's a skill that we can look at, okay? So if it's in the case of an interview, for example, you know, you're going for a job interview, then again, the communication. In the job, good communication.  And people ask the questions, okay, what did you do? When did you do this?  Will they ask me some question that I don't know? You know, all that is there. But to be able to share about yourself, right? To be able to share clearly to the point and also descriptively, well, it takes a certain amount of skill to do that, okay? For some of us, maybe it comes naturally and for some of us, we need to learn, okay? But the good news is that we, all of us can, okay? So all of us can be good communicators. All of us can be, and it bears fruit, okay? In whatever line of work or ministry that we are in. Okay, so communication also is important because you're able to discuss certain things with people, discuss with the team.   Now, there is a need for good communication to be able to plan things, to be able to work things out, to be able to guide and so on. So the thing is this, it is important. It is something not to be neglected. It will take effort, but it can be done, okay? It is possible, it can be done, okay? So let's look at developing communication skills, okay? How can we develop communication skills? And we need to give some thought to it and focus on it because if we don't develop it, if our communication skills are poor, then it affects relationships, okay? That's the thing, that's the key thing because communication is about people. It affects relationships, doesn't get the job done at the end of the day or maybe people do it in a poor manner, okay? One of the factors, you know, it could be a lot of other things also, but then, you know, one of the factors it's that it affects relationships, it doesn't get the job done. Or also, you know, in a, like in a home setting, in a family, let's say, husband and wife, you know, when the communication is bad or when the communication is poor, then the relationship suffers, you know? There is misunderstanding, there is conflict, there is no reconciliation, there is offence, bitterness and so on. So everything, we see that relationship breaks down because of bad, poor, or no communication. No, that's the worst, when there's no communication at all, you know, then the relationship does not happen. It's basic wisdom, right? There is no relationship if there is no communication, okay? So let's look at, you know, developing communication skills, okay, because it can improve our lives, it can improve our relationships, and it can give us that edge in the work that we are doing, in the ministry that we are doing, okay? So communication involves a lot of things. So let's look at that one by one, okay? First of all, let's look at verbal communication, okay? So we're not looking at, you know, written communication, we're not looking at, you know, creative writing or stuff like that, but we're just, you know, narrowed down and we're focusing on verbal communication. What does it mean? What does verbal mean? Okay, something that is spoken, verbal, you know? When you say somebody's verbose, that means that, oh, a lot of words, right? Verbal means something that is spoken. So when it comes to verbal communication, okay, we're gonna be focusing on that. What is it about and how do we get our message across and we are, of course, talking about what is spoken, right? So one of the things is the language itself, okay? Knowing the language itself, you know, that is very, very important, you know? Of course, if we don't know the language, then we can always learn the language or we can always have an interpreter or a translator, but that is always a, you know, it's a longer process, but that can also be done. But the best thing is to, of course, learn the language, know the language in which you have to communicate, to get the work across, you know? To know the language and to know it well. So the thing is to improve on it, okay? To continue to improve on the language, knowing the language and getting to know what are, what is the usage, right, common usage, you know? I'm sure you have these books, you know, learn Hindi in 30 days, okay, or learn a certain language in so many days. And the way, these are some old books, you know, I still have, I think, learn Hindi in so many days, but if you look at it, it's like a very, what is the language? It's a very bookish thing, you know? It's very formal, it's different from the way we would actually speak and communicate, right? And it follows some very rigid rules and so on. And that's not really helpful, you know? People are not going to actually make fun of you, if you, you know, and you say, I'm just trying to think of how to say it, but I guess, you know, my Hindi is bad, so I just won't attempt it, okay? But the thing is this, you know, you understand, right? If you learn a language that way, it's going to be difficult to communicate. Of course you can communicate, but it's not really effective, okay? So verbal communication, if it needs to be, and if you learn the language, you learn the language, if it's how it's spoken, and some of the idioms and phrases, like for example, you know, you learn to, we need to know how it is spoken in a certain place, right? In a certain place, like, for example, you know, I remember asking someone, okay, how was the exam? And this person answered, it was cool. Oh, it was cool, very cool. Okay, so we need to understand, just an example, right? So we need to understand that, hey, what is cool? Cool is actually, what is actually meaning? It means that it's an indicator of temperature, right? If it's cool, it means that it's pleasant, it's not hot, okay? You cool down, okay?  So here I am asking about an exam, right? How was the exam? The person said, oh, it's very cool. So I need to know, what is that cool, I don't know, what does that cool mean? Right, it was a usage, it was a common usage, just, what does that mean? You tell me, what does cool mean? If somebody answers and says, oh, it was cool, what does it mean? Anyone? Dave also uses this word cool, okay? So Dave, as you tell me, so what does it mean if I ask you something and you say it's cool? You know, it's cool, pastor. So, so what does that mean? The word cool, anyone actually, not just there? Anyone? Ah, okay, it was well done. It was, in the context of exams, it was fine. It was more than good, okay? Excuse me. So yeah, so much in that, in those letters, very relaxed. I remember an advertisement for Sprite, I think, the drink Sprite, you know, cool drink Sprite, which was, the whole thing was about cool, right? And cool being, not the drink being cool, but the attitude being cool, okay? And I think the character's name was Fido, Fido de doh. Very cool, just relaxed, yeah, very relaxed, that's right. So, so that's the thing, right? So for us to be effective in communication, you know, like some people might say, can I serve this food? Let's see, asking, and then they say, no, I'm good, okay? I'm good, so what is the question? Do you need some more rice, or can I serve you some more biryani? And the person answers, no, I'm good. So, well, you didn't say, you didn't ask the question whether that person is, you know, good or bad, but the person said, I'm good. So what does that mean?  I'm good with this, I'm good with whatever, you know, they're on my plate, I'm fine, I don't want anything more, no, I'm good.  No, I'm good. That means that person is saying that I'm fine, I don't need anything, no, thanks, I'm good. So, you know, as a communicator, if you are, you know, if we are among people who talk like that, then it's important that we understand that. It's important that we, you know, I'm sure in your own languages of Hindi or Telugu or, you know, Tamil or Kannada, you have that usage, right? So you need to understand that, okay? It's not that you don't need to know the grammar and everything, but this would help us communicate that it's not like it's a bad word or anything, not advocating that, but to know the common usage. So language, very important, we understand that and we speak it, et cetera, right? Okay, so also know that there are formal communications and informal communications, you know, formal communications, the way you would address a meeting, you know, a formal meeting, maybe it's a business meeting, maybe it's a, you know, meeting of leaders, maybe it's a meeting of staff, you know, depending on the setting, the language differs, right?  Or, you know, if it's informal sitting, if it's just some friends, and there's no need to be formal and say, okay, I'm very glad to be here this evening, I'll be among you as friends and, you know, there's no need to be like that and everybody's going to think, hey, what's strange? This is strange, what is weird? This is weird, right? This person's talking like this, right? So, but we need to understand that a formal is informal and accordingly, you know, addressing in that tone or in that way will help our communication, right? It helps the message to be received well, right? There are no barriers to communication, right? Okay, so let's look at the next one, which is nonverbal communication, okay? So, when you say verbal, when you say communication, what we're saying is, okay, the words that we speak, the language that we use and things like this, like the slangs that we use or the phrases, the metaphors that we use are to speak. But also, there are in communication, there is this nonverbal communication which forms part and parcel of the message, whether you like it or not, okay? So, for example, okay, suppose you ask me a question, so how are you doing, Pastor, okay? And I'm answering, there are two ways I'm gonna answer. Okay, response number one, I'm great, okay? You got that, you asked me the question, how are you? And I'm answering, oh, I'm great, I'm doing great. And the same question, you know, how are you doing, Pastor? And I'm saying, oh, great, okay? First, I answered, great, great. Secondly, I'm answering, great, okay? Now, same words, I'm doing great, oh, I'm doing great. So, what do you make of that, of these two responses? Let's look at response one, let's look at response two. What do you make of that first response? Or, you know, what did you understand? That first response, anyone? Kiran, first response to my quest, you know, to your question, let's say you asked the question, how are you? And I responded that way, okay? So, based on that first answer, what do you understand? Strange, what was strange? The first response or the second one? My first answer or the second one? First one, okay, so I'm saying, you know, you're asking me how I am and I answered, I'm great, I'm doing great. So, okay, so is that strange? Because the answer was, yeah, there was excitement, I said, I'm doing great. How did you know?  Okay, that's one thing, gesture, okay? Okay, for one second, you know, just understand that the words were the same, right? Okay, so body language, yes, there was excitement, there was body language, I waved my hand, okay? I waved, I gesture with my hand. And what else did you notice? How was my phone? Phone of my voice, right? It sounded, there was a lot of energy, right? I sounded excited and I'm saying, oh, great, right?  The tone was down, there was no energy, sounded tired, okay?  From the way they call you, okay? They call Jake Maher, you know, I remember, then oh, something is wrong, why? They're just calling my name, it's the tone, right? From the tone, I know that something is off, okay? So the tone, the gestures, the body language, okay? It conveys something, something added to the words, right? So that is also communicating, you know, that's communicating either the person is interested, not interested, person is, you know, fear, afraid, all those things. So in communication, in order to be effective communicators, we need to learn this thing, or we need to understand that there is something called non-verbal communication, right, is the person. So as a listener especially, we need to, we're going to look at, you know, another section, another category called listening, so as a listener, I need to know, well, people are saying something, but then what are they actually really saying, right? They are saying those right words, but the expression is not matching with the words, right? Now, when you're doing something online, it makes it even more difficult, right? It's, so that's a challenge, like to communicate online, where you can't necessarily see the people, right, you're communicating with, right? Okay, so non-verbal communication, very, very important for us to know, but you can use non-verbal communication in order to reiterate or reinforce the word you're speaking, okay? So when you, when we, because of our posture, you know, we lean forward to say something, or when we gesture to say something, and the tone, you know, when we, when we are excited about the message that we are actually sharing, it creates a very positive environment, and the messages goes out forceful, okay, than before, okay? So people are responding to the message, what is being communicated. So as a communicator, as one who is speaking or presenting something, I can be aware of all this, okay? See, we did the class on Biblical preaching, right? Homiletics, was it last semester or before that? Maybe before that, right?   We, we, we shared that. So that's the thing, you know? In one of the, some of the things, it could have been even more animated, right? I remember sharing this feedback, you know, look at the camera when you, when you're speaking, because some of you were looking at your notes only and you're not looking into the camera when you were speaking. So you remember, you know, we looked at all that. So, so all that helps in order to communicate the message well. So just remember that. Okay, so when you're, you know, what we need to understand is that our facial expression, our tone of voice, and our body language tells people how we are feeling emotionally, okay? And the words also convey it. But all this, it is also speaking something, communicating something, okay? So this non-verbal communication, it helps to reinforce relationship with people, okay? Now, they, let's say you realize that, you know, somebody is saying something, but then they are being very defensive, okay? Somebody's saying something, but you realize that, yes, the words all sound great, but you realize that they are being guarded, okay? Then we can actually do something in order to improve that. Improve that, or let people loosen up.  They're all sitting very stiff and you're speaking to them, you're addressing them. You can actually help people relax a little more. Just find out why they're doing that, right? And then you can actually draw people out from their stiffness and, you know, so you can do that as a person, right? So which means that we need to understand, are people stiff, are people, you know? Why are they like that, right? And I asked them a question and they answered, but still I feel that they're, you know, based on their answer, based on the tone of their voice, they are angry with me. I can find out and dispel that anger, right? So it helps us to reinforce our relationship and set right our relationship, okay? Verbal, non-verbal communication also gives us feedback, okay? Like I don't know, one place where I was a long, many years ago, just sharing the message. And the fact is that normally, you know, you look at people and then you share and then you say amen and then they would also say amen or praise the Lord and they were also, you know, maybe not their head, right? You're looking for all that, you know? Isn't it? And then they say, yeah, they agree with it. And sometimes it's difficult, you know, when people don't do that, right? So I remember speaking at this place and then like, I would look at them and say something and they would turn their eyes away, okay? So I had a tough time finding out why, why were they doing it? Okay, and I'm trying to do my best, you know, to communicate and I'm thinking, you know, what am I doing wrong, right? I'm sharing and they're turning their eyes away. They're looking away and this particular audience. So then I realized that that, the culture of that particular group, you know, that particular ethnicity is that, that they, for them to look at the eyes of a person who's a elder or a spiritual leader is a sign of disrespect, okay? So I was trying my best to look into them, to look into their eyes and share and speak, you know, so that I can connect. I can tell them, so that I can, that's my natural thing, right? You look at them and you speak. But they were turning their eyes because in their culture, to look at a leader or a spiritual leader or an elder and directly as a sign of disrespect. So, you know, you see the difference, subtle difference. It was conveying something, right? They were conveying something. They were actually conveying respect. But for me, it was a disconnect, okay? So the, you know, at a regular audience, are people watching? Are people nodding their heads?  All this is communicating something to us. So we can make those changes. We can make those adjustments, right?  So these are the things, okay? And also, you know, so, yeah, regulating the flow of communication means that, so we can tell people that, okay, just by saying, by looking at them and, you know, with our facial expression or with our nod or something, which is again cultural, we kind of convey that we are done with the message and several things, right? So we learn that, okay? And the thing is that with the global audience or maybe God takes you to a particular setting, we need to understand what is, what is permissible, what is not, okay? Now, when you point fingers, you know, in some cultures, it's at a person as an elder, it's considered disrespectful, okay? So we need to understand that, okay? So I'm not really, you know, point fingers at a person and things like that, simple things like that, we need to understand because then communication will be effective, they will not be offended, okay? They will not think that what is this person, he's not, you know, doesn't have manners, he's doing all this, right? Okay, so, so in conclusion, okay, so we see that, yes, communication can be verbal, communication is non-verbal, it's important to understand the non-verbal things and make it part of our communication process, okay?  Just try it out in your communication, see how it can improve when you add non-verbal communication, okay? And you see how it can break down things if your non-verbal cues are not there, okay? Or, you know, your tone, the tone of your voice, if it's different, you see what the response is, okay? Just try it out and we will talk about it. So next class, we're going to talk about listening skills. It's very, very important, again, okay? Okay, so we will stop right here. You have a good day and God bless you guys, okay? Bye-bye. Thank you, Barthe. Thank you, sir. See you, bye-bye.


This is stock number 10390. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy duty truck headquarters. Today we are checking out this super clean 2018 Chevy Silverado 2500 Crute Double Cab Short Box. This truck has the 6 liter V8 motor and has been fully safe and inspected by our state of Wisconsin mandated inspection, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and tapped off and this truck is 100% ready to go. Cajun red tint coat is the color. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p so if you have 60 frames per second so if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device turn them on right now because it is like you're right here looking at the truck with me and definitely your best way to see the truck's quality and condition before seeing it in person. If you want to check out more photos in the upper right hand part of the screen is a link right to our website to this vehicle so click on that and check us out there. It has the 20 inch polished aluminum rims, absolutely perfect on that rim. No scuffs, scrapes or corrosion. Goodyear Wrangler SRA LT26560 R20 tires with about I'd say 80 to 90% of the tread left, frame and underbody looks really good. I didn't see any dents or dings on that front fender, has the projector lamp headlamps, the Z71 grill, factory fog lights, no dents or dings on that front bumper, very nice and clean. I didn't see any dents or dings on the hood and the passenger side fender, no dents, dings, scuffs or scrapes on there. The passenger side rim is in excellent condition as well, no scuffs or scrapes. And as you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down you can still see the truck, hear the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. We offer a Summit Auto Fastpass option on our website in the upper right hand part of your screen. There's a link right to our website where you can apply for financing, get pre-approved, get a payment quote, even appraise a trade if you have one, all right on our website so click that and check us out. Lower rockers are in excellent shape, factory chrome step bars, frame and underbody is in great shape, back tires have just as much tread as the front tires and this back rim, I didn't see any scuffs or scrapes on that. We want to give you the most accurate representation so if you take advantage of that Summit Auto Fastpass when you get here all you got to do is test drive the truck, love it and you'll be all set to go. Has the in bumper rear steps, the tailgate is an excellent condition on here, I didn't see any imperfections on there. Has the shock down assist tailgate, also has a line X spray in bed liner. The bed is in really nice shape, didn't see any major dents or dings. That tailgate lifts really easy and shuts nice and solidly. Locking tailgate, down this side of the truck just as clean as that passenger side, no dents or dings on there and for full disclosure this back rim, no scuffs or scrapes on that. Down the rest of this side of the vehicle, very very clean. It does come with the telescopic tow mirrors with the built in directional signals and the side LED lights which are a really nice feature. They do fold in.  There are no rips, there are no tears on the seats.  Power driver seat, turned out four-wheel drive, auto headlamps and factory brake controller. Over here you have your power windows, power locks and power mirrors. And as we hop inside the vehicle here, you can see that this one has 24,298 miles. You get the Z71 instrument cluster, everything's very nice and clean. You get the leather-wrapped steering wheel, no scuffs or scrapes on that, cruise controls on the left, Bluetooth and information center controls on the right. You do get audio controls on the back of the steering wheel. Comes with the six-speed automatic transmission. The Chevy MyLink radio, AM, FM and Serious 6M radio capabilities. Has the backup camera right there. And this one does have the projection so you can do your Android Auto and Apple CarPlay capabilities. Project your phone right to the screen. Dual-clamp control, CD player, stability control. Those are your cargo lamps. I'm going to turn those on so you can see the side lights and the mirrors. That's how you turn those on. Downhill assist control. And it does have a plug-in all the way down there. It's kind of hidden. It has a 110-volt, 150-watt actual plug-in right there as well. You get the all-weather floor mat on that side. The manual adjusts passenger seat. This is the 40, 20, 40 split-ben seating. So you can sit up to six people in here, side current airbags. And that headliner is an excellent shape. This truck's never been smoked in. Smells very clean inside. Has the map lights up there. Then you get on-star capabilities in the rear view mirror. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we will check out under the hood. So I want to show you those side lights. Just show you how bright they are. Kind of hard to see in a video, but those things are super bright. If it was dark out, we could really show you how well they work. You turn those on with the cargo lamp. Back here, latch child safety system. Seats are just as clean as the front seats. No rips or tears. It comes with the fixed glass rear window with the built-in rear defrost. These seats do fold up for extra storage.  And then those all-weather locking floor mats go all the way across back here. And all that does is keep your carpet underneath looking like new. We'll take a quick look under the hood. Once again, those side lights. Super bright. I'd personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. And hopefully from this HD video, you will have been able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around. Inside and out, under the hood, we have the 6-liter V8 motor. Engine-based, very clean runs, very smooth. Like I said before, this truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop. It has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off. This truck has like new tires and is 100% ready to go. To see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half-tons, three-quarter-tons, one-tons, you name it, we got to go to our website, www.summitauto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com. And if you'd like to check out more HD videos, you can go to youtube.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. In fact, in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left. A link to more heavy-duty truck videos like this one on your right. If you have not been to our website on the bottom, a link to this vehicle on our website, click those, check us out. And we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2018 Chevy Silverado 2500 Double Cab Short Box LT1 Z71. Thanks again.


Thank you for joining us for this online program. Writers Lunch is a casual and virtual brown bag lunch activity on the third Friday of each month. Look forward to craft discussion and formal presentations on all forms of writing and excellent conversation. I'm Nico Chen and I am the program manager here at Mechanics Institute. I'm unmuted now. I'm Lesley Ann Wifter and I'm the Public Programs Director at the Center for the Art of Translation. This special session of Writers Lunch on the topic of crossing languages in writing is co-presented with the Center for the Art of Translation and celebrates the intersection of International Women's Day, which happened last week on March 8th, and the International Day of Multilingualism, which will happen on the last Wednesday of this month on March 27th. Lesley, can you quickly give us the introduction to the Center for the Art of Translation? Yeah, the Center for the Art of Translation is a San Francisco-based, nonprofit organization founded in 2000 that champions literary translation. You're dedicated to finding dazzling new and overlooked voices brought into English by the best translators and to celebrating the art of translation. Our publications, events, and educational programming enrich the library of vital literary works, nurture and promote the work of translators, build audiences for literature and translation, connect with local communities, and honor the incredible linguistic and cultural diversity of our schools and our world. You can find out more about our publications and upcoming events at catranslation.org. Thank you, Lesley. And to introduce Mechanics Institutes, we were founded in 1854 and we are one of San Francisco's most vital literary and cultural centers in the hearts of the city. We feature a full-service general interest library and internationally renowned chess club, ongoing author in literary programs, and the Cinema Lit Film Series. Writers Lunch is a sustained free programming for our writerly community from our local members to our national and global guests and audiences. In addition to our recurring programming for writers, we also offer programming in the literary arts and many of these events are free for our members. Tomorrow at 1 p.m. Pacific time, we will be hosting an inquiry filled session with Professor and author Maurice Hamilton for his book, Revolutionary Care, Commitments, and Ethos. If you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, we also welcome you to join us for one of our onsite events in our historical building in the heart of downtown San Francisco. On Thursday April 4th, we have a National Poetry Month celebration with California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick, San Francisco Poet Laureate Tonga Isen Martin, and Oakland's inaugural Poet Laureate Ayodele Mazinga. Look in the chat box for the link to register now for these online and in-person events. We are also pleased to announce our contemporary translated works book group on Wednesday May 1st from noon to 12.45 Pacific time. Join us for an introductory discussion online with Deremi Tiang, who translated Beijing sprawl from Chinese into English. Dive into the rich tapestry of global literature with this inaugural meeting for our contemporary translated works book group, presented in partnership with the Center for the Art of Translation and Mechanics Institute Library. This literary journey begins with Beijing sprawl by Zhu Zhe Chen, a narrative that invites you to explore the vibrant heart of contemporary Chinese fiction. As a special deal for our writer's lunch attendees, we are providing coupon codes for you in our chat box now for you to use to obtain the books. Thank you very much, Leslie. And I will also share with you that we are also going to have a follow-up book group meeting on Wednesday June 5th for readers who want to discuss this book and have the option to meet also in our fourth floor boardroom at Mechanics Institutes. Together on June 5th, we will delve deeper into the book and continue this literary journey. Leslie, would you like to introduce today's topic? Yes, today's discussion is on the topic Crossing Languages in the Writing. It's a formal discussion that will include a Q&A with the audience. Please add your questions as they emerge into the chat, and Nico and I will read them aloud during the latter half of today's writer's lunch. Nico will now introduce you to the first of our special guests. The first of our special guests is Christina Garcia. Christina, would you like to wave to the crowd? Thank you. Christina Garcia is the author of eight novels, including Dreaming in Cuban, and most recently, Vanishing Maps. Additional publications include Two Latin X anthologies, Books for Young Readers, A Collection of Poetry. Garcia's work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into 15 languages. She's the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Widing Writers Award, a Hotter Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant among others. Garcia has taught at universities nationwide. Recently, she was a visiting professor at University of San Francisco and was resident playwright at Central Works Theater in Berkeley. Leslie Yan, would you like to share the bio of our next special guests? Sure. Grace Lopezad. Grace, would you like to wave? Thank you. Is the author of The Translator's Daughter. She writes frequently on the topics of diaspora and belonging for publications such as The New York Times, Long Reads, The Offering, Hyperalagenic, Catapult, Cora, and others. A member of the Writers Grotto and the AAPI Writers Collective, Seventeen Syllables. Prasad lives in the Bay Area. Thank you for sharing that. And I will now read Saskia's bio. Saskia, would you like to make a little wave? Thank you very much. And Saskia Vogel is the author of Permission, a novel on grief, desire, and coastal Los Angeles that was published in five languages and long listed for the Believer Book Award. She is also the deputy editor of The Erotic Review, a 30-year-old UK arts and lifestyle journal which relaunched in March 2024. Her writing focuses on desire, landscape, subculture, and care, and has been awarded the Berlin Senate Endowment for non-German literature. A translator of over two dozen Swedish-language books, her work has won the Bernard Shaw Prize, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction, and has been shortlisted for the Penn Translation Prize, as well as having been supported by grants from the Swedish Arts Council, the Swedish Authors Fund, and English Penn. She was Princeton University's translator in residence in fall 2022, where she completed her translation of Linnea Axelsen's Swami Epic Ednan. Correct me if I'm wrong. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she lives in Berlin. And last but not least, Leslie-Ann, would you like to introduce our wonderful moderator? Yes. Award-winning author and Pushkart Prize nominee Cheryl J. Bisebutte is an Oakland multidisciplinary writer whose autobiographical and fictional short story collections, along with her lyrical and stunning poetry, artfully succeed in getting across deeper meanings about the politics of race and economics without breaking out of the narrative. An inaugural Oakland poet Laureate runner-up, she is also a popular teacher, literary reader, presenter, storyteller, curator, and emcee and host for literary and poetry events. And Cheryl, we'll let you take it away for this wonderful writer's lunch today. Thank you both and thank you panelists for joining us today. I'm going to launch with my first question. How has your exposure to languages influenced or informed your writing? Saskia, would you like to take that on verse, please? Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl. Sorry, everybody. I am in London at the moment. There was a book fair and I've been talking for three days. I lost my voice. So sorry, I make it creaky. I remember having this reckoning at some point when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the career part of my life. And I realized that as long as I'm sort of touching language, I'm really happy. And kind of at any level. And I'd grown up multilingual with a German speaking mom and Mexican stepmother and in Los Angeles. So like, you know, you kind of have to turn off your ears if you don't want to participate in the Spanish speaking side of the region. But I think when something that was really transformative for me was Swedish is a a family language by way of migration and my family. And I went to high school there. When I started working as a translator, something, one of the things I love the most is like pushing the boundaries of English, seeing what English can hold. Because of course, all languages have sort of different conventions and different sort of capacities to hold and express emotion and human experience. So what I really love to bring to my writing from my translation practice and a general awareness of how other languages work and feel is this sense of like, can I push English further? Can I push it to a further limit? Like how far can I push English and still allow it to hold and maybe break it open so that it can maybe describe the human experience in a new and interesting way. Interesting. Very expensive view of language. How about you, Grace? How has your exposure to languages influenced or informed your writing? Thank you, Cheryl. So my memoir has just come out. It's called The Translator's Daughter. And so in my case, I actually do not consider myself bilingual. I know a little bit of a few languages. But my father was a Bible translator. And so that was his lifelong career and passion. And I've written about this in the book. So he knew four languages, actually both he and my mother knew four languages before I was even born. So my parents and I are from Taiwan. And that's where I was born.  And then their second language that they used at school and out in the world was Japanese because Taiwan was under Japanese colonization during the early part of their lives. The third language they learned was Mandarin Chinese, which became prevalent after Chiang Kai-shek and his armies and the nationalists retreated from China to Taiwan and took over. And then they both learned English as graduate students in Princeton. And so this was all before I was born. So I guess I've lived in a household that was infused with lots of different languages. My mother also actually has a PhD in Japanese literature. But my upbringing, we moved from Taiwan to New Jersey when I was two years old. And so then I was educated in English and I stopped speaking Taiwanese. And then when I was nine years old, my dad's job transferred us to Hong Kong. And I attended an international school.  And so the irony is that I was constantly, I was always living in a very international environment surrounded by people from many countries. And it felt very natural to me. But at the same time, I was never actually called on to use any language other than English. And I could kind of get by in Hong Kong because it was at the time still a British Crown colony. And so there have been all different experiences and migrations that have contributed to my experience and my identity. But I would say I am primarily an English speaking person. And my memoir really deals with the, you know, the repercussions of language loss and kind of understanding how special and unique my parents were and my childhood was. And I've somehow ended up in a situation where living in California, living in the US is the only place I feel comfortable because I'm not fluent in the other languages they knew that would have allowed me more mobility. Great answer. How about you, Christina? Well, I want to circle back to something Saskia mentioned, which is this idea of expanding the terrain of the English language. And I feel that's something that I have been very conscious of from day one, from my very first novel. A lot of what I write would be normally taking place in Spanish or more recently in German and even Russian. And so I feel like I'm the primary translator. How can I accommodate the song, the Spanish song in English and thereby expand the parameters of the English? And so that's something I think about a lot. Sometimes it means stitching in Spanish or German or Russian. My last novel has all of those languages. And sometimes, and most often, it's about what is the rhythm of a sentence sound like? What is it doing that's different than other sentences in English? How is it accommodating Spanish? My ideal experience would be that someone is reading my book in English, the language I wrote it in, but somehow experiencing it in Spanish. Sometimes feeling like there's something else happening here that they may not be able to point their finger at, but they're experiencing something. It's like getting English to mumbo a little. No, no, I just wanted to zero in on that part of it, since it's so much of my daily preoccupation writing. You bring up a point though. We talked about this before we started the program today. How in your writing does your use of language accommodate the culture that language is immersed in? Because I think I said to you all, I can't separate the language from the culture when I'm writing. How does that work for you, Christina? Well, if anyone has ever seen a book that has gone from English into Spanish, you might note immediately how much longer the Spanish is. It weighs more. When I'm writing in English, accommodating Spanish, I'm conscious of that a certain amount of excess. Of course, it depends on the character and what you're describing and so on, but there's a bit of excess. Maybe something is described two or three different ways, and arguments are a bit more baroque. It's funny. I remember my daughter and I, who is actually way more fluent in Spanish than I am, we went back to Cuba when she was in college, and it was the first time we'd stayed. My grandmother had died and we'd stayed in a hotel, and we kept getting targeted as tourists speaking English. I said, the only way we're going to get out of this is if we start fighting in Spanish.  It was all we could do not to totally crack up, but we were fighting back and forth. Everybody left us alone. It's not just the words you say, how you say them, with what intonation, with the music, with the linguistic music of the culture, all of those things come to play in every sentence. Exactly. How about you, Grace? I would say that for me, I'm often, because I'm writing about language loss, I'm actually writing a lot about substitutions and other things that stand in, and so I'm often relying on different symbols. Writing includes a lot of references to art. There are often references to music. There's even an essay where I write about Majang, and the fact that it's the only activity that I can participate in entirely in Taiwanese, because I know just enough, and just that small kind of gathering gives me a sense of belonging that I wouldn't otherwise have without language. Exactly. I feel that too. Saskia. I was just thinking about how, in my novel Permission, one of the things that I felt like I really wanted to kind of find a new language for or find a home in language, or I don't really know how to phrase that, but let's just put a placeholder there in that idea. Find a home for language in the expression of desire. I really wanted to find a new, or a kind of a mode of language that would hold this experience that is somatic, that is nonverbal or barely verbal. I was really inspired by the Swedish modernist poet Kaldry Tillarp, who I guess is kind of in a surrealist lyrical tradition. But also, I guess working with her, there are a lot of features of the Swedish language that are standard, pro-style in Swedish, but super annoying to American editors, and then the assumption is super annoying to American readers, such as extremely short, fragmented sentences. Weirdly, even though the verb structure doesn't really support it in the same way as Spanish, Swedish will often leave off the pronoun at the beginning of a sentence, walked to the store, and so I took liberty from this, I guess, via this modernist poet and, I guess, grammar to try to create this space where I could maybe create a sensory experience in the reader through the structure and music of language to kind of, you know, to kind of try to invoke experience of desire in a different way. So I think this is kind of, this is what this question has reminded me of. So talk a little bit more, Saskia, about how poetry is a base for you in terms of expression and conveying meaning. And I want Grace and Christina, both of you, to also think about that. So I'm going to answer that one as well. Saskia. That's a really nice question.  And I think like, sure, you can say poetry, but also like poetry can have that function, I think music can have that function, something that interrupts the rather regular rhythm of speech. But actually, I have been reading Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man for the first time. And when I think about all the reported speech and the voices in the book, I also think about his listening and how, yes, that could be poetry, that could be music, but it could also just be the mindful practice of like walking through the world and tuning yourself into the to the poetry and the music that kind of exists all around us, just kind of shifting out of your own, your own rhythm, your own, um, yeah, your own kind of quirks. That those snatches of experience that you turn into words. So Grace, how does poetry work for you as a base? I would say I own a lot of poetry books. And I find it does kind of change my approach to language. It's a good way to redirect myself and to, you know, enter that more lyrical space, as Saskia was saying. I also, as I mentioned, for me, the kind of inputs that helped me when I'm writing, in addition to obviously reading, you know, poetry and other writers, are art, music, film, and so forth. And I think there's less of a direct relationship, maybe, between my experience of poetry and what I'm writing in terms of the language, but I guess often what I'm trying to do in my writing is put on the page, how much I don't understand, or what are some of the feelings that are that are in my body or that are instinctive that I don't have the words for, you know, in in Taiwanese or Mandarin or another language, but that the I'm trying to portray. So so I feel like there's different kinds of translations going on. And I think all of those, hopefully, are are taking from poetry as inspiration. I definitely have a lot of poet friends that I read. And it helps me put me in a different state of mind to go back to the page and to not be afraid as much of what I don't know. Right. At my core, I am a poet. So so I embrace all of that. How about you, Christina? Yeah, I'm with Janet Fitch on this. I taught creative writing and MFA programs for 30 years. And that's the first thing I tell my students is to is to leave this class and go by a poetry anthology for a starter. I think there's nothing that derails the same old same old as much as poetry. And in non progressive, not in the political sense, but you know, the the one step follows the other sense. I also think one should read widely globally in poetry, because I also think poets are the they distill culture, their cultures, better than anyone. And I feel like they are the best emissaries of culture around the world. And so I'm I don't go a day without reading without reading poetry that that absolutely. And I think it's also it's also an interesting invitation to a kind of linguistic chaos that could end up being extremely fruitful in your own work by inviting the unknown, what you dimly perceive what's as as Grace Pialli once said, what you know, poetry will find what you don't know about what you think you know. Exactly. And you know, there is this thing about how much you learn when you're writing something. I mean, what you learn about yourself and about the cultures that you're writing about as well. So I want to ask a practical question. And I want to start by a brief little story. In my books, the trail on the bayou and back to the bayou, I am writing about people in Louisiana who speak French. Now, I don't I don't write in French and I don't speak French, but I have a cousin in France that I kind of use to tell me what the right words are. And not only what the right French words are to use in the passages that I'm writing, but also the type of French. I mean, you know, I think we need to appreciate there are different dialects and manners of speaking all over the world, just like there are in the United States. But my problem has been with American editors who don't quite get that. How has your experience been using other languages with American editors and how have you resolved those issues? Sasha? Well, let's see. I mean, gosh, I think there might have been one or two lines in a different in maybe in German and my novel, but it really isn't a feature of my own writing. But as a, I feel like via the spirit of translation and constantly navigating the spirit of the Swedish language, it gets really interesting, you know, like I was I'm working on this book called Cesaria by Hannah Nordenhoek. She's Fernanda Melkor's translator in Sweden. And this book, we're trying to find a sort of like diminutive sort of pet name for one of the like farm hands at this farm, where the young girl where the main character is a young girl lives. And she suggested like to add to something that used the word last. And I was struck, I was like, well, if we use last suddenly, this is like, I need a Scottish inflection, whenever I'm working with dialect or whatever. And the sort of difficulty of transferring of like being like, okay, this is a rural Southern Swedish dialect. You can't just kind of point to a dialect in the in the English sphere and go, I'm just going to use this one. Sometimes you can.  But like, I think because of the migration, for example, to Minnesota, the, and from Sweden, I do sometimes lean on like my, my, my half of my family is Midwestern. So I kind of lean on their sort of the kind of, you know, like a Minnesota dialect, or most not necessarily, I'll avoid words, specific words, but I'll rely on like a a rhythm of speech. And I think it's a really difficult thing, because when we talk about what's untranslatable, or what doesn't fly, what does it mean when I point to Minnesota in a rhythm of speech, that's like first, there's a there's a history there that makes some sense. But like, could I do the same thing with like, I don't know, patterns of speech from Birmingham or I don't think you can like a big ethical quandary opens up. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Writers have to write what they want to write. That's the bottom line. How about you, Grace? I would say in working with editors, and I thought my editors were fantastic and very flexible, for the most part. In my book, like I have some foreign words. So there are some words in Taiwanese, there are some words in Mandarin, I think there's a little bit of Chinese text, in some places where I had to get some help with that. And I also I worked with, I happened to take a class actually from a translator and writer who you know, is fluent in English, Taiwanese, Spanish, and I think even other languages. But she's fluent in Taiwanese and Mandarin. And so she helped me with those aspects of my book, I felt like it was very important for me to have someone check that. Of course, the irony there is, you know, throughout my life, the source of that kind of knowledge and confidence would have been my father. But he passed away a number of years ago, and so did my mom. So the people that I would have gone to that had that authority and knowledge were not available to me anymore. And so I had to seek some external advice and just checking. And there are some real interesting issues, I guess, in transcribing place names, for example, in Taiwan. So there's a system of romanization, so rendering Taiwanese place names into English words. There was a system called Wade Giles that was very prevalent at the time, you know, that my parents lived there and from my childhood, and so that's what gives us names like Taipei, the city. If we did that in classic Mandarin, it would be Taipei. And so like the name Peking used to be used for the Chinese capital, but it's now known as Beijing. So there are ways to write the text. And so I had to make some decisions about what to do because the Wade Giles way of romanization and also the romanizing, that's for Mandarin. For Taiwanese, there's even more decisions to be made. And so I use a particular kind of romanization that was intrinsic to my family. It's called Beiwei Ji, and it stands for church romanization. So there were a lot of different issues in terms of representing, you know, some words in my book. And so I had to do my own research. And then I had to, you know, discuss my point of view with an editor as well as a copy editor and say, this is what I'm trying to do.  I want to use certain terms the way that my parents use them and spell the names of like a city where they lived in the way that they have always used it with me within our family, even though that spelling is no longer prevalent because it has evolved. And because Wade Giles is no longer the favorite system of romanization for Mandarin, it is now what's called pinion, which is what is used in the mainland is considered more standard. And so you, you know, like just traveling places in Taiwan and Taipei, you will see street signs and place names that are spelled three or four different ways. So, so it's confusing. And I think I just had to decide like what was my point of view and what was my intention. And so I actually include an author's letter at the beginning of my book to explain some of the choices I made, because I'm thinking about who might be reading it and what is their position. And they might use different spellings or different forms of romanization, depending on where they are. And just as an aside, but really more to the point, Mandarin is the number one language in the world. So, you know, good for you for pushing those points.  Christina, what about you? Yeah, no. It's so interesting. I've seen my first novel came out in 1992. And, and that feels like it was a generation ago. And at that point, I was I was using Spanish in the English text. And, and I was told you have to italicize it, we should have a glossary in the back to explain everything. I mean, it was it was those days. And so I fought against the glossary. I fought against the italics and lost at that point. But from the second book on, I no longer used italics. And I, and in my penultimate book, well, my last book in my penultimate book with with which contain German and Russian and other, and as well as Spanish, no, no italics, either. So I think is, I think it's important to make the tent as big as possible. Welcome. Welcome readers in, but not over accommodate. You know, we all read Russian novels where we were looking up words or had an academic work, you know. And so I think that's okay. And I think there are, I always find that terms of endearment, for example, can be very awkward when you translate them, like in Spanish, when you say me, you're not going to say my daughter, that's a different has a whole different formality that that is not intended in Spanish. And that's just a tiny example. So I use Spanish or German or Russian, when I think it's the rhythm, the context, what a lot of things have to happen for for it to be there. And, and I don't shy away from that. I think it's important. And I think it reminds readers that what you're reading is multilingual or it's happening in Spanish or it's happening, you know, the arguments happening in German. And they're just little reminders. And I think that's important. I don't, I don't presume, and don't want to presume the kind of arrogance of language, you know, like English Ubras. Right. That is that is an arrogant thought that that English rules. And as we just have learned, there are a lot of other languages and a lot of other cultures in the world that we write about that are just as interesting and just as valuable. Do we have any questions from the audience? Yes, Cheryl, there is a question that is specific for Grace, but I think it can also expand to the other panelists as well. For Grace, I'm struck by how much of your family's history and language was affected by historical events, the occupation of Taiwan by Japan, the influence of mainland China on Taiwan and the English colonization of Hong Kong. How do you feel that politics are parts and parcel of your experience of language and your parents' experience of it? I think Grace should answer that first, but I think it can also expand to the other panelists about the intersection between politics and language use. Thank you for that question. Language is absolutely political. And so, you know, just and thank you for encapsulating that so well in the question. Yeah, there were, you know, different languages came to become more prevalent due to politics. So under Japanese occupation in Taiwan that people were forbidden from speaking Taiwanese, you know, so they could speak it at home to each other, but out in the world at school, at work, at the market, you know, they had to speak Japanese and sort of, you know, try as much as they could to blend in and appear to be, you know, like colonized Japanese citizens. And then when the nationalists took over and they established Mandarin and did the same thing, they effectively banned Taiwanese for a number of years. And Taiwan actually had until recently the longest period of martial law. They were under martial law for 38 years. And I think they were only recently exceeded, I think, by Syria. So I think a lot of people forget that that Taiwan now is like this thriving, vibrant democracy. But, you know, in our lifetimes, not that long ago, it wasn't. And so it was very political to speak Taiwanese, or even to have like a Taiwanese name. So for example, our the incoming vice president of Taiwan, her name is Shao Be Kim. And that is Be Kim is actually a Taiwanese name. And so she has chosen to use that as her English name instead of the Mandarin version of how you would pronounce it. And so that is because of, you know, her family's history in Taiwan and that they were you know, descended from Taiwanese that had been there for much longer, you know, so for generations before Chiang Kai-shek came over. And so they were very proud of their Taiwanese identity. But that was a political choice. And so, so yeah, I could go on and on. I don't want to take time away from my fellow panelists, but absolutely, it is a political choice. You know, what language you choose to speak, how you choose to represent yourself and, you know, what becomes dominant, I guess. Yeah. How about you, Sasuke? I was just thinking about one of my translations that came out this in this January called The Singularity by Balsam Karam. It's out with feminist press in the U.S. And in it, I really love the way the politics of language come into play, notably, so it's a story about a family Balsam didn't want to give readers kind of an easy out by being able to appoint to a specific country or war or, so she, you know, like, oh, I've been to Beirut. It's like that, but not really, you know. So it's she somehow manages to find kind of anesthetics of grief and migration and displacement in her prose. And one of the things that really strikes me is the last section of the book is kind of about the sort of the losses in assimilation or kind of facing your host culture and kind of everyday microaggressions, everyday racism that just kind of slowly wears you down. And at one point, the mom in the book says the daughter's correcting her Swedish. And the mom in the book says, what does it matter if I make myself understood? And Balsam kind of pointed to that and said, that's my approach to this whole book. And the language sits there kind of on the verge of a nervous breakdown, like there's, there's in inverted grammatical structures, etc. And my challenge as a translator, as a stylist, it was really to try to figure out how to hold the sense of fracture without making it sound like it's not written in by a native speaker, which was absolutely not the case. It was just supposed to hold this sense of what does it matter if I can make myself understood inside a very lyrical framework where language is always kind of about to crumble, which is, which holds kind of the entire sensibility of the novel, the like sustained, like a minor chord of grief that vibrates through the whole thing. So you're trying trying to convey the true core meaning of your words? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Christina. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lovely description. Well, I am, you know, I come having come from Cuba and having had a family that was bitterly divided over the revolution. For me, language has always been political from, you know, the propaganda on both sides. In fact, I felt like I grew up under this shouting, propagandistic battle that trickled down on me, you know, and when I was in Cuba, it was compañero de compañero that in the in the 80s and that default. And anyway, and then to complicate matters, Cuba has this huge diaspora. I mean, I had studied in Moscow and Czechoslovakia there are half Cuban part Cuban Russians, Germans, you know, the whole, the whole relationship with the Eastern Bloc.  It's just this huge swirling diaspora centered in Berlin, which becomes a centrifugal force for all of these cousins for these, these generations that are scattered around the world whose roots are Cuban, but, you know, who grew up elsewhere. And, and, and they're managing not only linguistic differences, but the, but the attendant cultures that come with those linguistic differences. And they're trying to figure out, well, given all of this, we're, where do I belong? Because in a sense, language is a kind of identity. It's, it's belonging. And, and that's something that is in continual navigation in my work, especially my most recent work. That sense of belonging is, is just key. I mean, you know, you have to speak the language of the group, right? Then then, you know, you belong. But on the other hand, we want to always be able to convey as writers differences that people should be able to embrace through what we say to them in our writing. And to get people to have more empathy, because that's what writing is about really understanding and empathy. Any more questions from the audience? Yes, we have another question from chat. Does the meaning or intention of what you want to write in one language have to change when shifting to another language? They're thinking here about idioms that have deep meaning and understanding in one language, but that are meaningless or nutty in another. And then second part of that question is how do you handle that and maintain your intention? So Christina, let's start with you. Yeah, I think that's maybe the challenge is finding equivalencies, equivalence, whatever the noun is there. One odd, there's a very funny expression in Cuban Spanish that my mother used to say when she was being disparaging of someone's intelligence, and she would say, O ese tipo no tiene dos dedos de frente, which translates ridiculously into that guy doesn't have two fingers of forehead. I mean, that doesn't fly. But basically means the guy's a dumbass, you know. Yeah, but I got it. So that's just an in Cuban Spanish in particular is picturesque with very, very off the charts kinds of descriptions. So it's about finding equivalence. It's about finding, you know, kind of maintaining some of the absurdity and rhythm, but having it makes sense having it truly translate unless you just want to use that in and of itself and everyone who doesn't speak Spanish grabs a dictionary and they'll still be mystified because what does that mean someone doesn't have two fingers of forehead, right? Equivalencies, I think. Wonderful answer. Grace. I would say I don't encounter that as much in my writing, but I think about, you know, my dad being the translator. So of course, I grew up in a house full of books, and he had many, many books on language, linguistics, translation and Bibles. But he also in particular love to collect books of idioms. Because idioms are so different by language and by culture. And they, you know, they, so every culture has their own like very colorful and sometimes like very funny, you know, expressions. And so that's a, it's useful, I guess, in the practice of translation. And so my dad's mentor was someone named Dr. Eugene Nida, who advanced a theory called functional equivalence, which was essentially saying what I think we all like, you know, can understand easily now. But this was decades ago is that you can't just translate word for word, you know, that's how you end up with wooden stilted translations. And you have to understand and appreciate local and regional idioms to kind of understand like the soul of a people or a community. And so, and so my dad would, you know, kind of study these things for different communities that he was working on translations for. And I think also it just, they also contain idioms expressed what is important to a culture. And sometimes the concepts themselves don't translate. So I remember there was a movie like many years ago called A Great Wall by Wayne Wang, I think. And it was about a Chinese American who goes back to China to visit his relatives. And so I saw this a very long time ago. But one scene that stayed with me was that, you know, so he's kind of sort of got this interesting relationship with his female cousin. And so they're kind of flirting and, you know, they're developing this friendship over their time that he is staying with them. And so he passes her a note. And she tries to open it. And like immediately like her mother and father are there going like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And so and her, what she says back to them is she kind of parrots this idea that he has taught her, which is, you know, privacy, privacy, like this is my note just for me. And the family doesn't understand that because it's like anything that's your business is our business too. You know, and so that was just kind of like a funny point of the movie showing that like, you know, this idea of privacy just did not change in that other culture. Right, exactly. The marriage of language and culture. And understanding what that all means when you unpack it. Saskia. I mean, that question is like the question that I wake up every day and deal with in my day job as a literary translator. And I have no, thank you so much for everything you already said. I don't really, Christina and Grace, I don't know if I have much to add, except maybe particular examples from my own work. But one of the things that I'm thinking about is, so this is the erotic review, the magazine issue one that we just launched. And in the second issue, I've commissioned an essay from two translators who are married, Curious of Son, who just got on the Man Booker long list for a translation of Ia Yain Badi's, The Details and her wife, Jackie Cornetta. And we've we're working on this essay about love and language learning. And what I love about that essay is it's basically about how they learned to talk to each other and bridging to language, like bridging their cultures and their languages. And I, you know, unsurprisingly, they use this bridge metaphor. But also, and what I love about the bridge metaphor that they're using is they see the space between as generative and productive, like the fact that we can't necessarily bridge all the time, that it is actually that in the tension in not being able to necessarily find perfect equivalence or find perfect resonance. It's actually that's how we find intimacy and encounter. And I love this idea that like, you know, that space is actually like, if everything's collapsed onto itself, it's just one big soup. But the fact that we're always reaching for each other through language or through our bodies, and we can't make a we can't do a perfect union, my can't my hands can't meld together, they interweave. That's how we connect. That's where intimacy is. That's where love grows. And I yeah, I can't wait to work on the next round of edits, actually, it's going to be great. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Any more questions from the audience? Sure. So a question that actually emerges for me is, what kind of works that sort of transcends the linguistic boundaries that we usually impose inspire you, like I'm thinking about like Gloria Anzaldua's work, where a sentence will start in Spanish and, you know, go into English and then back into Spanish within one sentence, are recently watching, you know, everything everywhere all at once where people are speaking in both Chinese and English within one sentence. Do you do you want to share any works that transcends those linguistic boundaries that can inspire us all to cross languages and writing? How about you, Grace? I always go back to Dictae by Teresa Hakyung Cha, a Korean American, who sadly was murdered like not long after her book came out. I think this was like around 1980 or so. And so her book is written in English. It includes some fairly lengthy passages in French. So she's writing in English and French. And because I also studied French, and I'm also a person of Asian descent living in America, I feel this kinship with her. I also love kind of her her interesting structure and some of the choices she made with that work. So, you know, that's something that inspires me, just the fact that her chapters are very different, her style changes in different places. She has dictations. And so she's reflecting also on, you know, a homeland that she has left behind and a feeling of loss and, you know, sadness, being in diaspora and sort of missing that experience. And yet there's this third language that comes into play. And in some ways it mimics for the reader that sense of displacement. And so I just find that really artful in moving. Right. Christina. You know, I recently posted something on my subject letter, which I've now retired from three, three, after three years. But I just put up three, I'm terrible with names and titles, but I'm trying to do it now and I'm not, I can't multitask. But basically, I read three books and recommended three books recently in translation. One is translated from the Spanish into English. It's called Bad Girls. And it's about sex workers in Cordova, Argentina. And it is one of the funniest, most poetic heartbreaking books I've read recently. There's also another book translated from the Spanish into English. And I'm forgetting his first name. But if you go on to my Las Dos Brujas newsletter, Substack, it will be back there maybe like a couple of weeks ago. It's Labutat, a Chilean, a writer of Chilean descent who is writing about mostly European mathematicians and physicists. And so there's a lot of things that are being translated and negotiated throughout. But I thought it was a gorgeous translation, a brilliant book. And then there was also just another book translated from the Japanese, which is sort of a classic crime mystery novel called, I think it's called Tokyo Express. I'm forgetting. Anyway, it's just, I love a good mystery every now and then. And it just captures post-war Japan beautifully. And I was just running to look, see if I can grab the books, but I, you know, my library's a mess. I couldn't find anything. But anyway, those recently are three books recently that I loved and thought were beautifully translated. Thank you, Christina. I love your joy, by the way. Oh, thank you. I guess I immediately thought of Ellen Sissou's work on Lekretu Femenine as like one of the first and Gloria Angelis that also were like some of my first encounters with this as a student. But actually, in like an everyday way, the journalist, I think is an LA Times journalist, Gustavo Arellano, his newsletter, like he writes in a mix of English and Spanish and kind of like a so-called vernacular. And I just, I love getting it. It's my, it's like my favorite thing to read that comes into my inbox. I know it's not a book book, but it brings me a lot of joy. I think because it's, I love these encounters with like bodies of speech, you know, that like aren't necessarily my own and that I can't necessarily access fully. But I just like being there for it, you know, feeling my, feeling my way into it. Wonderful. In our final, in our final. I was just going to say one thing, if it's okay, if I may, Cheryl, or have we run out of time, I was just going to say we're about time, we're out of time. Okay, go ahead. Well, I was going to ask in our final few minutes, if you each would just briefly provide us with anything that you'd like to say that you didn't get to say. And what you're doing next. Christina, go ahead. Well, thanks. That was a great segue. No, I was also just interested and wanted to flag how we're talking about kind of individual cultures as if they are, well, we're not really talking about, but you know, cultures are not static. And there's always new influences, new immigrants coming in. I mean, I can talk about Cuba and the arrival of, you know, Chinese field workers in the 1840s that, that changed the language of, of not only, sadly, the, you know, the Africans who were brought in to work the sugar cane fields, but the Spaniards there, in other words, the Chinese presence, which persisted pretty much until the revolution in 1959, altered language idiomatically and otherwise. And so I just, it's a continually evolving, absorbing process and never static. So I just wanted to. Thank you, Christina. Grace, let me let you get in here. I would just say this has been such an enjoyable conversation and so beautifully facilitated by you. So thank you. Oh, thank you. I think what I'm learning from my panelists and just am reminded of is that we are talking about books that are written in many languages, you know, some are many of which have been translated and we're talking about so many different countries and cultures. And I just think it's so important, you know, and so I want to put a plug in and say I really wish Americans would read more translated literature. And so, you know, I would like to see just more and more of that. It's just so enriching. And of course, as a third culture kid as well, I'm always going to be of the view that having a passport is important and experiencing different cultures and languages and through their literature is important. Thank you. And last word. I'd say, yeah, if I may shamelessly plug in that in the spirit of Grace's read more translated literature, the books that I have coming out this year are books that I have advocated for for a very long time and it's some of the work that I'm the most proud of. So if you catch my name in the newspaper and you see a book that I've translated, pick it up. It really especially Linnea Axelsund's Ednan and Balsam Kauram's The Singularity which are out right now. You think they speak to some of these questions that we've been talking about today, very much so actually. And also, especially with this question of politics language, it's two of my proudest pieces of work and I really want them to find their readers. Thank you all. This has been wonderful. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Cheryl, Nico. And before people leave, I welcome you to turn on your videos to wave lovely goodbye to our wonderful panelists. I also welcome you to join our contemporary translated works book group that is happening at Mechanics Institute in partnership with Center for the Art of Translation. And also please join us for our next writer's lunch. The topic is ecological awareness in writing. It's happening on April 19th at the same time from noon to one and I've also popped that link into the chat. It is a wonderful discussion between the food writer Viola Buittoni and also amazing ecologists such as Obi Kaufman, a California-centric ecologist, and also Kevin Hobbs will be joining us all the way from London. So please join us for that wonderful writer's lunch next month. And thank you to the panelists for all of your beautiful thoughts. We all learned a lot stepping away from this writer's lunch today. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Thank you. Bye.