Colonial Encounter, Gendered Mediation, and Cultural Adaptation: Translating Local Cuisine in Taiwan Travelogue

Abstract

This paper explores translation as a form of cultural adaptation and gendered mediation in Lin King’s English rendition of Taiwan Travelogue, with particular attention to the representation of local Taiwanese cuisine. Set in 1938 during the Japanese colonial period, the novel adopts a pseudo-documentary structure in which Yáng Shuāng-zǐ constructs a fictional colonial travelogue through layered paratexts and fabricated archival elements, creating the illusion of historical authenticity. Within this framework, Aoyama Chizuko is presented as a Japanese woman traveler whose culinary journey through colonial Taiwan is mediated by her Taiwanese interpreter, Ō Chizuru. Chizuru’s role extends beyond linguistic transfer to cultural negotiation, as she guides Aoyama’s understanding of local food, customs, and everyday life. Through their interactions, the text reveals how colonial encounter, female mobility, and local identity intersect within acts of translation.

Local dishes such as lóo-bah-pn̄g (Braised Pork Rice) function not only as culinary references but also as carriers of cultural memory, preserving traces of Taiwanese everyday life under colonial rule. The English translation further develops this layered narrative by re-mediating a text that is already shaped through multiple layers of fictional narration, pseudo-documentary construction, and translational framing.This study focuses on how translation negotiates the transmission of taste, sound, and historical atmosphere through the rendering of multilingual culinary expressions in colonial Taiwan. To preserve the colonial setting, the translator retains Japanese pronunciations for colonial-era terms and Japanese-influenced expressions, while tonal markings and phonetic specificity in Taiwanese Hokkien allow local voices to remain audible and culturally distinct within the English text.

These strategies demonstrate that translation functions not merely as linguistic transfer but as an active form of cultural adaptation that preserves marginalized histories and foregrounds the gendered dynamics of colonial contact. By mediating between colonial memory and global readership, the English version creates a critical space in which Taiwanese cultural identity, female experience, and historical memory are reinterpreted and made accessible to contemporary international readers.