
Interview. Chris Mukama is a teacher, translator and interpreter of Chinese Language. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in IT and another in Chinese Language and Asian Studies from Makerere University
What does your job entail?
My job entails translation and interpretation of the Chinese language, document translations for the university from Chinese to English, Teaching Chinese language and also acting as the Chinese Bridge in many Uganda-China relation meetings/conferences. I predominantly work with education institutions, business, technical people, and the legal fraternity.
Please walk me through your career path…
I have previously worked with the Directorate of Citizenship and Control on the National Identity Card Project, Stanbic Bank as a Systems Administrator, and various Chinese companies including the now defunct Lee and Gao, Ho and Mu food technology in Uganda and various other companies as a translator.
I currently do some work with Makerere University School of languages and Confucius Institute and also occasionally called in to help with my expertise on the subject of Chinese language at UNEB.
What was your motivation for learning Chinese?
Honestly Speaking, I picked my motivation along the way because in the beginning I had no clue I would end up getting serious with the language. Back then in 2008, while playing basketball with Chinese guys who had come to visit the university, one of them jokingly told me to put the language into consideration but that was it.
After that I never thought of Chinese again until I finished my I.T degree. Even as I accompanied my dad on a trip to Beijing in 1994, I never had a clue of what I would face in the future.
Actually because of the language barrier, I could not wait for the trip to end so we headed back home. Years later as I happily finalised my studies in Information Technology at Makerere University, I was happy to get an I.T related job although I had it in mind that I wanted to venture into the linguistic world with Chinese language.
In December 2009 I enrolled for my very first official Chinese class at Kampala language Centre with a friend called Michael Arinaitwe. But then I dropped out because our then Chinese speaking Ugandan teacher vanished and we dropped the course. I started doubting if I should continue Chinese after that. I kept doing self-teaching off google and YouTube and I finally got my groove back.
At that point I needed no more motivation and went on hard to date. I then enrolled at the Institute of languages at Makerere University with three other friends, Hellen Bintu and Sandra Rwese. By then only one Chinese teacher was available. In fact, we were only three students in our class. Since then, I have never looked back.
What was your childhood dream job?
As a typical 90s kid, I admired anyone who worked in the bank and glad I worked in one as a Systems Administrator as my first job after graduating from university.