I'm a translator

Believe it or not, I'm now a translator.

Of course, i'm not a qualified translator. Just think over, who wanna employ a little girl who doesn't even have a SPM certificate to be a translator? What i am meaning here is, i am just a temporary translator, translating dozens and dozens of animal names, receiving no wages(stupid huh).

You must be thinking, 'does this make sense?' Well, let me explain to you. =)

I have 4 uncles in my maternal big family. 1 of them is now in Singapore, and the rest of them are operating a small company at Jalan Ipoh, selling off and trading in traditional chinese medicine. As we all know, many precious animals are facing extinction now(due to so-called human being's avarice), and so many laws and acts are enacted and implemented to protect them. A month ago, my 3 uncles received a letter from government, warning them not to deal with those extincting animals.

That's a long long letter i have ever seen, comprising 14 papers, each page consisting of 50+ animal names. Using your mathematical knowledge, wow...there are about a thousand of animal names. Well, that is not the interesting part. What makes me feel excited is, there are only malay names, english names and scientific names(Linnaeus binomial..do i spell it correctly?), not even one chinese names for those animalssss. So how? My youngest uncle just threw the whole stalk of papers and said, 'help me translate them into chinese names, thanks. Ohya, don't rush, just do it after your SPM has finished.'

Ok, so now it's the time. When i flipped through those names, oh my dear, how am i going to translate them? Let's see. Wow, i have to acknowledge that, what i learnt from Biology is just not enough as compared to those names. Just look at them, there are so many types of animal names under just a species!

Interested? Allow me to give you an example on monkeys :
Black-browed Spider Monkey(monkey looks like spider?)
Woolly Spider Monkey(it's as woolly as sheep?)
Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey(it's woolly with yellow tail?)
Mentawi Leaf Monkey(Leaf monkey??)
Mantled Howler-monkey(???)
Silvered Leaf Monkey(its colour is silver? with leaf somemore?)
White-throated Monkey(what on earth makes its throat to be white??)
Mona monkey(reared by Mona Lisa??!?)
Dwarf Monkey(it must be very short)
Dryas monkey(what's dryas??)
etc....
etc...

Cool huh? Of course cool, cuz you are not doing this job. Anyway, i feel some fun too. Now only i realise that there are really lots and lotsss of animals in this world, even for only protected animals, they are already in an enormous number. How about those unprotected ones? How about those which are still not yet to be discovered?

There is such a whale in our earth - Sperm Whale. I nearly laughed crazily, Sperm Whale? I really admire the scientists and biologists' creativity! As for what a sperm whale is, just check it by yourself. I already know the answer though +P

I also realise the nobility of the biodiversity. Just look around, green house effect, global warming, floods, droughts, pollutions, all these environmental problems are threatening our lives, so do the animals' lives. Animals domicile our mother earth since a long time ago(even earlier than us), and they are of a large amount. But now, who is ruling the world? Who is controlling them? Animals are disappearing from this earth, who should be blamed? Why do all these happen?

We all know the answer. Are the culprits taking any action? We all know inside our little hearts.

Let's appreciate the ecosystem. This is what i learn from the task of translating animal names to chinese names.