Abstract

Sir Charles Kao (1933-2018), the “Father of Fiber Optics,” fundamentally restructured the infrastructure of global everyday life, enabling the instantaneous information exchange that defines modern existence. Yet, in a profound sadness and unruly, Kao’s own later life was marked by a gradual communicative disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease. This paper examines Kao’s achievement through the lens of Translation Studies, moving beyond his scientific breakthrough to explore the translation of his life into Hong Kong’s cultural memory and legacy.

By examining the biographical manuscript and published version of Charles Kao’s memoir A Time and A Tide, alongside the interlingual dynamics of its Chinese editions 潮平岸闊, this paper suggests that his translator(s) have rewritten his silenced and vulnerable voice through an ethics of care. Specifically, I analyse how translator Victor Hui and Kao’s wife, Gwen Kao, interpret his scientific genius while mediating his presence to the public. Applying Eva Feder Kittay’s ethics of care, I argue that this act of care-as-translation reimagines the ‘everyday’ not as a site of seamless data transmission, but as a precarious, embodied struggle for connection. By juxtaposing the infinite connectivity of fibre optics with the cognitive fragmentation of dementia, this paper explores how Hong Kong reimagines its heroes (Kao, but also Gwen and Victor), suggesting that the ultimate translation of Kao’s life is found not in his technical papers, but in the silent, everyday interactions of care that sustained him.

Bio

Dr Uganda Sze Pui Kwan is director of Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation programme and associate professor at the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London. She was awarded a Monbukagakusho scholarship to study at the University of Tokyo and was subsequently appointed as Project Associate Professor. She has also accepted visiting appointments at Harvard University, Princeton University, and Cambridge University (on a scholarship at the Needham Research Institute).

Uganda has published numerous articles and three books, among which she has awarded a book prize in Hong Kong for Interpreters as Scholars (yizhe yu xuezhe) 譯者與學者 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2017). Her works has appeared frequently in Bulletin of Institute of Modern History (Academia Sinica), A New Literary History of Modern China (Harvard University Press), Journal of Translation Studies (A&HCI), Journal of Chinese Philosophy (A&HCI), Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge Core), etc.