Dear Outsourcers: Please leave a feedback for WWA (willing to work again) on the top right on the profile page after each completion of project. Proz.com has made it available for outsourcers, not me, to update it, so please do me a favor. Thank you!

These are Buddhist scriptures containing 81,340 wooden printing blocks, made in the 13th century Korea, which was called Goryeo at the time. The whole collection is either referred to as the Tripitaka Koreana or the Tripitaka Goryeo.

It is the world's most comprehensive and oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Chinese script, with no known errors or errata in the 52,382,960 characters which are organized in over 1496 titles and 6568 volumes. That is why I have the photo to represent my services. Its beauty lies not only with the sheer magnitude and the accuracy of the work, but also with the aesthetical value of carved characters and the high quality of workmanship.

Each wood block measures 70 centimeters in width and 24 centimeters in length. The thickness of the blocks range from 2.6 to 4 centimeters and each weights about three to four kilograms . Check it out for yourself when you visit South Korea at Haeinsa Temple in South Gyeongsang province. It's one of the main tourist attractions, so it shouldn't be difficult to find it.

My translation philosophy is fairly similar to the one found for the New International Version of the English Bible. It is called the dynamic-literal equivalence. Simply put, it is trying to sound natural in English without losing the "original" sense. I see it as a close balance of both art and science. If you'd like to read more about it, then please get an NIV Bible and read its introduction.

I've seen some translators who use modern vernaculars, such as "horse hockey" for a 5th century Goguryeo warrior expressing disbelief on one of the Korean historical dramas. I wouldn't cry over the word horse, but hockey?! It'd be all right for many people, since its primary focus is entertainment value, but the neglect of the context has been disturbingly on the increase. But, it is still a relief to see that post-modernistic values of plurality, compartmentalization, and subjectivism haven't taken over the field of translation yet, since it would effectively dismantle the core purpose of communication. As an ardent student of ancient books, I've come to appreciate the training that I had received in hermeneutics. If you don't know what hermeneutics is, you can get started by looking at this decent Wikipedia article. Even if you aren't a translator but you'd like to be a better reader in any language, I encourage you to take a look.