Paul McLean in Taiwan

(Written from Mary Beth’s perspective…) Friday morning (April 27) Rev Dzen Dzen-dzung picked us up in Chung-lak (Centre of the Valley) and drove us to his home in Chuk-dung (East Bamboo) where we were greeted by his wife Maria and son Daniel. We chatted over tea, pineapple chunks and rose apples. Daniel teaches saxophone and [...]

(Written from Mary Beth’s perspective…) Sunday (April 22 in Taipei) we got up around 5AM, finished packing and took a taxi over to Sung-Lien PC to join the Hakka fellowship group. We travelled together by bus to Hsinchu (New Bamboo) for the big Hakka Bible celebration. On the way a microphone was passed around the [...]

(Written from Mary Beth’s perspective…) April 13-16 we were in Miao-li, Kung Kuan. We actually stayed in Fuk-ki (pronounced ‘Fook-gee’) with the Gongs, a committed Christian family whom we met 30 years ago. Elder Gong, now 92 years old, was part of the Hakka Bible translation team. Each morning at 7AM we joined him and [...]

(Written from Mary Beth’s perspective…) On Thursday April 5, Paul & I went to Toronto Pearson Airport where we boarded the EVA flight to Taipei shortly after midnight. This is my first time back in Taiwan since we returned to Canada in 1995, 17 years ago. I expect to see many changes. It was a [...]

If you are wondering what the new Hakka Bible will look like, here is a sample from Luke 10:16-40.

Sin-ngien Khoai-lok…Happy New Year! The Hakka Bible is now at the printers! We expect that it will be ready for distribution in April 2012. It is nearly 2400 pages long, since it contains the complete Old and New Testaments printed in parallel columns using Hakka-Han characters and a Romanized phonetic script. The BST is using [...]

For the past two months, I’ve been here in Taiwan busy with my coworkers doing the final “typesetting” and proofreading for the Hakka Bible. Typesetting both Hakka-Han characters and their phonetic or Romanized equivalents in parallel columns is extremely challenging.

Some examples of words, phrases or concepts that have be a challenge for me and the translation team over the past year.

In February 2010, we reached an important milestone when we completed our translation of the Old Testament. For the remainder of the year, we began our second and final revision of the New Testament & Psalms, and the book of Proverbs.

Over the course of my three visits in 2008, the Hakka translation team and I made hundreds of small yet significant improvements in the books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos. (We hope to publish Amos in early 2009 as a single volume edition for eagerly waiting readers, then through the rest of 2009 complete the remaining major and minor prophets.)