Bruno Gensburger is now tapping into his Chinese exposure and experience to improve business ties. Feng Yongbin / China Daily

He has worked for murderers and for heads of state - Now interpreter sheds light on some of his encounters

Bruno Gensburger's story with China started generations before he was born. His ancestors traveled from France to China to do business in the late 19th century, and his father was born in China in 1924. While some of his forebears lived through the turmoil that China went through before modernization, Gensburger has seen at first hand the momentous changes in the past 20 years or so. A former interpreter for high-level officials, including former French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, Gensburger has now joined those helping shape the country's ties with Europe.

He was elected vice-president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China in April. For three years he has chaired the chamber's pharmaceuticals working group, drawing on 25 years of contacts with Chinese officials. He is also a member of the French chamber's executive committee in China.

"I spent 10 years as a freelance interpreter, and 10 years in a more comfortable situation," he says.

"I don't think that, at the end of the day, life is that comfortable. So you have to be prepared for the challenges. This is why I decided to change."

Growing up, Gensburger was surrounded by talk of China, so it seemed natural that at the age of 20 he should choose to study Chinese at the French National Asian Studies Institute in Paris.

He made his first trip to China in 1985 after graduating, and spent two years representing French aeronautical companies. Traveling around the country at a time when that was generally difficult for foreigners to do, he decided that he wanted to continue in the footsteps of his ancestors.

"At the end of 1986 I knew that I didn't want to become a businessman. It was very difficult to do business at that time. People were totally dependent on their Chinese interpreters. The rules were totally chaotic; foreigners were lost. The relationship with foreigners and Chinese was not that healthy. I saw foreigners get mad and I didn't want to get mad. 'I like the country, I like the people, I like the language, I like the culture. Why should I get mad at these people?' So I decided to study something that would get me a better understanding of the society I decided to become an interpreter."

After studying at the Ecole Superieure d'Interpretes et de Traducteurs in Paris, which is notoriously difficult to get into and for being even more difficult to get through, Gensburger spent 10 years working as a freelance interpreter, working at all levels of society.

"When you are an interpreter, you have a very diversified view of things, of life."

He says he has worked for "scientists, ministers, artists, murderers, philosophers, dissidents, businessmen, heads of state, policemen ... basically all the layers of the society transversally and vertically".

Gensburger made a name for himself as a simultaneous interpreter, and in 1999 was recruited to work at the French embassy in Beijing as commercial attache, political counselor and interpreter for all the high-level official delegations. There he got to work for Chirac and Sarkozy.

"Chirac loves China. He has a long love story with China. For Sarkozy, China was kind of new. Chirac was very eloquent; Sarkozy is much more matter-of-fact. The Sarkozy period was very interesting; the job was very different from that with Chirac. With Chirac we were kissing each other every day. With Sarkozy it was like crisis management everyday. You never knew what was going to happen."

Gensburger is keen to shed light on at least one event during Sarkozy's tenure - the Olympic torch relay in Paris in March 2008, less than a year after the president took office. The relay was marked by protests that tested Sino-French ties, but Gensburger insists that Sarkozy was not to blame.

"What happened during the (Olympic) torch rally in Paris was definitely not under Sarkozy's control. The president doesn't decide everything."

However, it is when problems arise that the importance of diplomacy becomes so clear, Gensburger says.

"This is real diplomacy. Because when everything is fine, there is no diplomacy. Sarkozy's period for me was the most interesting period. This was the period that I learned the most. First, the problem has to be addressed."

With Sarkozy's predecessor, he says, many things were not addressed, "because Chirac was so in love with China that no one would dare to raise the issues that would affect the relationship with China. Second thing: be frank. We are bound to live together and shape the future together."

As an interpreter, it was common for Gensburger to have to put across views diametrically opposed to his own, but far from being frustrated, he found it inspiring.

"When the president says something that you totally disagree with, you still have to translate as it is. You can't say, 'You are crazy.' No. Because he is a president, he knows what he says, he takes the risks. I'm not here to moderate his words.

"It's interesting to translate things that you totally disagree with. Because you see things from a different angle, with a different logic."

However, Gensburger acknowledges that on at least one occasion he "went beyond my interpreter role", with dramatic effect. When he was a freelancer in Paris, he was interpreting for a young Chinese woman charged with murder when he became uncomfortable about certain elements of the case, including police evidence.

"Then after double checking a lot of elements with the help of her two lawyers, we discovered that there was actually no serious proof of her guilt, and decided on the eve of the trial to radically modify her defense strategy. Then she was declared innocent by the court after more than four years in jail."

Of all the well-known people Gensburger worked for, Chirac is the one who impressed him most.

"I was very impressed by Chirac, his style, his warmth, his passion, his ability to get along with Chinese leaders. He's so warm, so simple and so direct. He would talk to you like a brother. As a man, as a human being, he was amazing."

Despite being immersed in Chinese culture and language for so long, Gensburger says he is still sometimes culturally confused, especially when he realizes how a people who are "very quick at picking up new things" often cling to old habits.

"The country has changed in every aspect, but the heart of the people hasn't changed. The surrounding has immensely changed. But I have a lot of concerns too: Pollution, food safety, traffic, a lot of things that make more people unwilling to come here."

As an old China hand, Gensburger is now tapping into his exposure and experience to improve the business circle that he walked away from more than 20 years ago.

"The EU working group is addressing the concerns of the pharma companies, trying to get the Chinese side to get along with the healthcare industry. It's also gathering the concerns of 1,500 members. We are working with them to get along with the Chinese government. I've worked in many fields, basically everywhere. Although I'm not an expert, maybe I can understand a little more than an absolute newcomer... which may sometimes be helpful."

sunyuanqing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/28/2012 page29)