Eliminating Borders
清除边界
The existence of translation rests foundamentally on the existence of border, but the border-crossing effect of translation paradoxically tends to hide and weaken, if not eliminate, the existence of border.
翻译的存在很基础地要依靠边界的存在。但是翻译的边界跨越效用，
But there is also a different tendency in which the act of translation almost disappears. It is a tendency that is eliminating borders, and eventually eliminating translation.
但是也有另一种倾向，在这里翻译行为几乎消失。这是一种正在消除
IPhone, designed mostly with domestic standards and codes of the United States, is currently sold in over 100 countries in one single format, a format that works so well in all those countries with nearly no localization (one kind of translation). The same hardware and operating system find no difficulty in fitting the variety of customers in differential geographical, cultural and economical context. This happens, because although iPhone offers its special way of operating (namely, multi-touch screen user interface) which is not naturally universal, yet all various requirements have been internalised, and to operate it demands nothing except some of the common capability of human beings.
IPhone，主要依照美国国内标准和法规设计的，目前在 100 多个国家
IPhone is a transcontextual product of today’s new technologies that inevitably eliminates contextual borders. We have no problem with that. In fact, we are all very happy to live with an IPhone.
边界。对此，我们并不介意。事实上，我们都非常开心地与 iPhone
This tendency happens in a similar way in architecture with the example of condominium, a type of architectural product that makes localization (translation) unnecessary. Nowadays, it is evident that the plutocrats from different countries worldwide seek to buy condominiums that are in almost the same domestic layout setting yet located in equally different cities such as New York, London, Shanghai and Bangkok. These buyers do not care about American or Chinese characters, yet appreciate precisely the universal values in their apartments, for living or property appropriation.
这种趋势也以类似的方式出现在建筑学领域，可以以高级公寓，这种
What is so striking about these examples is that it is not a single format of living that is imposed to us the common, but quite oppositely it is the common that is embracing the single with little resistance. The more common we become, the fewer borders there exists. Translation initiated transcontextual communications and materialised a common ground of living. In this condition, translation eventually weakens its own foundation of existence. The fading of the geographical/cultural divisions has proceeded at a differential pace throughout the world, but it is taking the same direction as we are evidencing. It is not only the Tibetan or native African that is losing their own cultural identity as claimed. It is every one of us in this globalised world.
却自相矛盾地倾向于隐藏和削弱边界，如果说不是彻底清除它的话。
边界的倾向，进而消除翻译。
销售，却仅是一种形制，一种在所有这些国家都工作良好，几乎没有 任何本地化（翻译行为之一）的形制。同样的硬件和操作系统，在适 应不同地理、文化和经济背景下消费者的多样性上没有任何困难。之 所以如此，是因为虽然 iPhone 提供的是一种并非天然普适的特殊使 用方式（即多点触控用户界面），但所有可能的差异要求都已被内化， 操作它需要的仅仅是人类共有的某些最基本能力。 IPhone 是当今新技术产生的跨越文脉的产品，无法阻挡地消除着文脉 一起生活。
无需本地化 ( 翻译 ) 的建筑产品为例子。目前显见的是，出自各个国 家的富豪们在世界范围内寻找并购买几乎完全一样的室内格局的高级 公寓，无论是在任何城市，纽约，伦敦，上海或是曼谷。这些买家们 并不在意什么美国或是中国元素，反而恰恰欣赏他们公寓的通用价值， 无论为了满足居住或是产权占有。 "Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China"
这些例子之所以如此引人注目，并不在于说某种单一的生活方式被强 加给了我们大众，而恰恰相反地，在于是大众毫无抵抗地拥抱着这种 单一。我们越变得共同，边界也就越少存在。翻译发起了跨越地域背 景的交流，使生活的共同基准得以成型。在这种情况下，翻译最终将 动摇自身存在的基础。地理 / 文化分隔的消逝在全世界以不同的步幅 进行着，但是都走在同一方向上，正如我们所见证的。并非只是西藏 人或者非洲原住民如他们所宣称的正在丧失自己的文化特性，而是这 个全球化了的世界中的我们每一个人。
Architecture in Translation workshop, MA HCT, Shengze Chen, 6.2.15