19
Apr 2005
Death on Chinese Roads
> China has the world’s highest annual road death toll. Traffic accidents killed nearly 107,000 people last year, the result of skyrocketing car demand, poor roads and bad driving.
Yikes. I don’t doubt it, but this was the first time I came across statistics of this sort. Of course, it would be helpful if the statistics were given more context. China ranks “highest” for a lot of things, given that it is the world’s most populous nation.
And my girlfriend wonders why I’m in no hurry to get my Shanghai driver’s license….
19
Apr 2005Oops
Sinosplice has been offline for the past few days for reasons entirely unrelated to hosting or blocking.
The other night right before I went to bed a thought popped into my head: doesn’t my domain name expire sometime in April? I better check on that.
I did a WHOIS lookup on www.sinosplice.com. Sure enough, it expired the very next day. Furthermore, my registrar was still the much-loathed iPowerweb.com. I vowed to myself last year to transfer my domain name to a new registrar before the year was up. I figured I could make it, because I’m 12 hours ahead.
So I immediately signed up with GoDaddy.com (hey, they have cheap domain names!) and initiated the transfer. Unfortunately, these things take time. Especially when dumb slow iPowerweb is involved. So, before the transfer was approved by iPowerweb, the domain name expired and my site went offline. Immediately thereafter I had to go on a business trip to Shandong for three days.
Basically, iPowerweb refused to transfer my domain name unless I renewed it for another outrageous $20. Plus, the way GoDaddy’s system works, I can’t approve the transfer without use of the e-mail address in my WHOIS info. Once my domain name expired, I couldn’t access that e-mail address anymore.
So basically, I still had to pay iPowerweb $20. Lesson learned: initiate domain name transfers early. Also, iPowerweb is EVIL. Seriously. Never use them. They offer a decent deal to lure you in, but once they have you, it’s hard to escape, and their customer service is horrible if you have a problem that falls outside of the problems they run into day in and day out.
I still want my domain name out of iPowerweb’s control ASAP, so Sinosplice may go down again briefly as the domain name is transferred, because I think the nameservers may have to be reconfigured.
Apr 28 Update: Success! My domain transfer has finally gone through.
12
Apr 2005Respectful Characters
Back in the year 2000 when I first started going to Catholic mass in China, I discovered some interesting interplay between the Church and the Chinese language. I’ll mention just one such example here.
Traditionally, God’s name has been capitalized in English, even in pronoun form. Hence you will find, “for He is our salvation,” “Follow Him,” “Do His will,” etc. The pronoun capitalization is intended to show respect.
An obvious problem appears when one attempts to continue this tradition in Chinese translations of the Bible. Chinese does not lend itself to the “capitalization” of just any character (though there may be an exception or two). I found the Chinese solution to be quite interesting.
To understand the solution, however, you need to first understand a few things about Chinese pronouns. The basic pronouns are 我 (I), 你 (you), 他 (he), 她 (she), and 它 (it). You’ll notice that the characters 你 (you) and 他 (he) have the same radical on the left side: 亻. This radical is derived from the character 人 and means “person.” Notice, too, that it is swapped out for a 女 to convert “he” (他) to “she” (她). Although it’s not done on the Mainland so much, the Taiwanese also sometimes like to make a female version of “you” (你) in the same way: 妳.
While the pronoun “you” (你/妳) is directly related to 尔 etymologically, “he/she” (他/她) is not directly linked to 也. Nevertheless, what the above usages seem to establish is that “you” and “he” each have a “core element” (尔 and 也, respectively) which, when combined with the appropriate radical, produce a gender-specific pronoun. (Interestingly, the use of 亻 — derived from 人, which means “person” — for the male element seems to be the reverse of the West’s former use of the word “Man” or “mankind” to mean “humans” or “humankind.” 人 is normally a very inclusive term, used even in the words for “alien” (外星人) and “robot” (机器人), where the English terms “person” or “human” would not apply. Perhaps the Chinese 人, at its core, means something more like “humanoid.”)
What the Chinese have done is make use of these “core pronoun elements” 尔 and 也. Rather than using either a “male” or “female” radical, an entirely different one is chosen (which seems to be in better keeping with a genderless understanding of God). The radical chosen was 礻.
礻 is derived from the character 示, which is generally understood to depict an altar. Karlgren states that 示 “occurs as a signific in characters bearing on religion, rites, etc.” (Wenlin). It seems the perfect choice. The pronoun characters you will see in the Chinese Bible when referring to God, therefore, are 祢 and 祂.
[Note: 祢 is already claimed as a surname pronounced Mí rather than Nǐ, but the Church seems to ignore this discrepancy. It’s also interesting that the Church rejected the use of 您 for God, which is the standard polite form of 你. I guess “polite” isn’t good enough. To me, at least, 祢 seems to simultaneously convey reverance (by radical) as well as intimacy (by pronunciation), but I have no idea how the Chinese feel about it.]I also wondered what had been done with the pronoun “I.” True, God doesn’t speak in first person much in the Bible, but it does happen. Exodus is a good example. The issuing of the Ten Commandments contains a liberal sprinkling of God pronouns “I” and “me”. Just one example:
> I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. (Ex 20:2-3)
So I checked this verse in an online Chinese Bible. No luck. It’s just 我. [Not sure if there could be Chinese Bible version issues here…] I was kinda hoping for 礻+ 我 for consistency. I suppose we don’t see this for two reasons. The main reason is that the character apparently doesn’t exist, and never has, even as a variant form. The other reason is that 我 contains no swappable element such as 亻 or 女. Like the English first person pronoun “I,” which comes capitalized right out of the package, it seems to need no dressing up.
Note: Christianity was almost certainly not the first organized religion to make use of “god pronouns” in Chinese. A Google search turns up examples of it in Buddhist literature as well. Being Christian and not Buddhist, I simply discovered their usage in the Bible first.
08
Apr 2005Stage 1 of the Makeovers Complete
I recently redesigned a few pages of Sinosplice:
– The root page is now Flash-less, with tons of text links emphasizing all the non-blog content I’ve got online. (Take a look; there may be some stuff you don’t know about.)
– Chinese Study Book Reviews has been given new life. There are new reviews, more guest reviews, categories, comment function* for each review, RSS feed, etc. Such is the power of CMS technology. Inbound links are appreciated; I’m going to try to make these reviews really helpful.
– A Pictorial Guide to Life in China has been made prettier. This is a pleasant reminder of the days when I cared less about offending my hypersensitive visitors. For now the comment function doesn’t work; I’ll try to get that working sometime next week. [Apr. 12 Update: Comments work now.]
There’s so much I want to do with my website, but that’s all going to have to go on hold for about a month. I just had a meeting with the professor at East China Normal University about how my entrance exams will be administered. Basically I need a decent grasp of everything in the 现代汉语 textbook. Too bad I had been concentrating on a different textbook in my studies until now. And I’ll have to write a timed essay for them. Now that I’ve got more specifics about the exams, I need to stop slacking (read: working on my website) and get it in gear.
* I had been using Haloscan comments before, but I found out that Haloscan deletes your comments after a certain amount of time. In every case where I had used Haloscan for adding comment functionality to a static webpage, comments disappeared after a year or so.
07
Apr 2005New Blog Name
OK, so I thought of a good name for a China blog:
The Document Contains No Data
(Yes, the internet in Shanghai still sucks. Why does Micah have no trouble accessing sites that I can’t access, living 1.1 km away? Ah, Mystical Orient, what a cruel mistress you are….)
07
Apr 2005The Rat Game
Rats don’t really freak me out at all. I recognize them as carriers of disease, so I certainly wouldn’t want any in my building, but I don’t get “disgusted” when I see one like some people.
I live pretty near the Zhongshan Park subway stop. When I walk to the subway, I pass by a large planter with some rather sad-looking bushes and grass (?) in it. The city’s attempt to cultivate this little green oasis inside a long expanse of concrete is mostly a failure, as there’s more dirt than anything in the planter. It is also in this location that I frequently see rats.
They’re your typical brown city rats, I guess. About the size of a good Idaho potato. They like to scurry around in that dirt. There are storm drains nearby, and the Suzhou River with its bustling garbage trafficking is not far to the north. The rats come out the most after it rains.
One day Carl and I started talking about how we always see rats in that one place. Since then I can’t help looking for rats every time I go by. It’s a sort of competition.
Today on the way home I saw three rats at once, all chilling within a few feet of each other. It hadn’t even rained very recently. Beat that, Carl!
06
Apr 2005Not that She
I was reading an entry on Peking Duck about a man who got a harsh lesson in police “justice.” This sentence made me pause:
> She, 39, was coerced into confessing to her murder and badly beaten in prison, the China Daily said.
[I’m going to completely ignore the point of the news story here. If you want to discuss it, you’ll be very welcome on Peking Duck.]Did you find that sentence confusing at all? “She” (舍 or 佘) may be the man’s surname, but in English it’s more commonly the feminine third person singular pronoun. When it comes at the beginning of a sentence, it’s indistinguishable from the Chinese surname written in pinyin. Similarly, “He” (何 or 贺) is a Chinese surname as well. “You” (尤 or 游) can also be a Chinese name. I, We, They, Him, Her, Me, etc. are not Chinese surnames, though, so the fun ends here.
I should note that of the Chinese surnames She, He, and You, none is pronounced very similarly to its English “counterpart.” The vowel sounds especially are notably different.
Still, this seems like a great setup for wordplay of some sort. It would be a welcome change from the stale Hu/who jokes which have only recently subsided.
Anyone up for the challenge?
04
Apr 2005One character said to the other…
I was recently introduced to a cute collection of Chinese jokes based on the small differences between similar Chinese characters. Some of them can even be appreciated without much knowledge of Chinese. I’ve translated a few of those below.
> 个 said to 人: I can’t keep up with you youngsters, and I can’t get anywhere without my cane.
> 日 said to 曰: Looks like it’s time for someone to go on a diet.
> 比 said to 北: Come on, now, you’re a couple! No more of this ridiculous divorce talk!
> 人 said to 从: You guys still haven’t undergone the separation surgery?
> 木 said to 术: Don’t think you’re so hot just because you have that beauty mark…
> 尺 said to 尽: The results are in, sis. You’re going to have twins!
> 由 said to 甲: Doesn’t practicing One-finger Zen make you really tired?
(Read the full list in the original Chinese.)
02
Apr 2005What is One-Finger Zen?
Recently I came across the term 一指禅 in my Chinese studies. I asked my tutor about it. She said it was a mystical kung fu secret developed by the Shaolin monks. Using this technique, a monk can do a “handstand” using only one finger. Supposedly he can keep this up for several minutes.
An English search for “One-finger Zen,” however, turns up a different story. Unsurprisingly, information about Zen in English is normally about Japanese Zen (rather than “Chinese Zen,” or Chán). I found this story, which I remember hearing in Japan when I studied there:
> Whatever he was asked about Zen, Master Gutei simply stuck up one finger. He had a boy attendant whom a visitor asked, “What kind of teaching does your master give?” The boy held up one finger too. Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the boy’s finger with a knife. As the boy ran away screaming with pain, Gutei called to him. When the boy turned his head, Gutei stuck up one finger. The boy was suddenly enlightened. When Gutei was about to die, he said to the assembled monks, “I received this one-finger Zen from Tenryu; I’ve used it all my life, but I have not exhausted it.” Having said this, he entered nirvana. [full text]
So it appears to be both a badass kung fu trick as well as a full Zen philosophy. I was pleased to discover that the Chinese have yet another interpretation, which was good for a chuckle.
01
Apr 2005Shanghailander!
I learned recently from the Shanghai Wikipedia entry that some people actually use the term “Shanghailander” in all seriousness, meaning “a native of Shanghai” (Google search). Don’t they know about Highlander?? This deserves to be made fun of.
30
Mar 2005Marco Polo Syndrome
In a recent blog entry, Sam of ShenzhenRen discusses what Justin of Shenzhen Zen has coined “Marco Polo Syndrome.” Justin’s definition:
> **MPS: the silent social killer.**
> Symptoms: exaggerated manifestations of superiority and exclusivity fostered by the delusion that the individual was the first and only foreigner to “discover” China. While it’s difficult to fathom how one can still engage in this egregious self-deception while standing under a glowing neon 20-foot visage of Colonel Sanders, it’s apparently not an uncommmon affliction.
> Cure? Apparently none, though foreign friends in Shenzhen also confirmed my findings through their own research.
My comment on ShenzhenRen:
> “Marco Polo Syndrome” — haha, I love it! Whatever it is, I can confirm that the phenomenon is alive and well in Shanghai as well.
> All of the explanations you offered sound plausible. I quickly came to a conclusion after about two years in China: There are two kinds of foreigners in China: freaks and cool people. I think there are more of the former.
> The scary thing is that I have caught myself exhibiting some of the behavior you describe! I’ve never told anyone to “piss off” or anything that extreme, but I’ve certainly ignored other foreigners I pass by. I’m not sure why I do it — I think it’s out of some kind of assumption that all foreigners in Shanghai are dicks. But there’s really no need for me to follow suit and act that way.
> So now I make an effort to at least smile at other foreigners. Usually they ignore me or frown back, but at least I’m not one of them.
A visitor named Ryan (the same one that comments here sometimes?) replied:
> I think part of the problem in Shenzhen is the fact that most people don’t come here to “see” China (and if they do they’ve come to the WRONG place). We have other motives for living here. I think this leads to (at least) two types of people who exhibit MPS.
> 1) The asshole foreigner is here on business. Perhaps unwillingly. You will often see him at Starbucks and overpriced bars. He may take a fork with him to restaurants. Perhaps he is focused on his job and not interested in meeting new people. Perhaps he realizes that most foreigners in China are backpackers or teachers and feels a natural sense of superiority, preferring to associate only with other people who wear suits.
> 2) The asshole foreigner has been in China a while and has gravitated to Shenzhen in order to make money, support a family, have easy access to HK, etc. I’ve noticed length of time spent in China used as a status symbol. Perhaps they look down on other foreigners, assuming they are new arrivals (as they often are). Perhaps, having been here a while, they have their circle of friends and aren’t interested in having more. Maybe they think they are so native that they aren’t interested in foreigners (this doesn’t describe me, but I do find myself staring at foreigners as much, sometimes more, than the Chinese).
> I used to be a friendly foreigner, but after being snubbed so often I now wait to be acknowledged before I will do the same.
Whatever the explanation, there’s certainly something going on. (Notice that it’s an anagram for another ominous acronym?) Check out Sam’s analysis as well as Justin’s original entry.
28
Mar 2005Adopt a Blog Update
Seeing as how the press has called attention to Adopt a Blog once again, I think it’s time to give an update. The program has been going for about a year now. So what is its status?
A lot of people liked the idea of Adopt a Blog. I got a huge response from people offering server space. This is great, because success of the project depends entirely on the generosity of such people. But the success of the project also depends on something else. *People need to come forward and ask for hosting.* That, for the most part, didn’t happen. As a result, the project did not succeed in getting many blogs hosted at all.
But even if there were a large number of “adopters” as well as “adoptees,” there are still a few other problems:
– Currently, e-mail is the medium of communication for matching “adopters” and “adoptees.” That makes a lot of work for one person, and it’s not the most efficient.
– If the program were to be very successful, I might get blocked. Noooooo, I don’t like that.
– If the program were to be very successful, I’d get a lot more traffic, which would give me bandwidth issues.
Therefore, it is my hope that some benevolent company overseas could champion this cause and host Adopt a Blog on their own servers. They would make themselves look good by supporting free speech online, all for a comparatively small investment. It would also be easy for the company to set up a discussion board, which would be a better way to make matches than e-mail. The company could also have the site translated (I’m sure it would be easy to find people to do it for free) without fear of any backlash.
Sooo… any takers out there?
28
Mar 2005AP
Note to Self: *When you know AP is calling you for an interview at noon, don’t go to bed really, really late, and don’t wake up right before the interview.*
An AP reporter in Beijing called me the other day about a story. It’s not a story I’m covering in this weblog at all; I don’t tend to write about politics. The story has been covered quite well, very early on, by ESWN.
In the AP article I’m quoted as saying, “**I want to move the big eye off me.**” Yeah, I really said that. Leave it up to my groggy mind to make vague references to *Lord of the Rings* with regards to the Chinese government in an AP interview.
The quote seems a little contradictory, though, doesn’t it? If I want less attention, why would I agree to an AP interview?! Well, it’s sort of a calculated risk. I was trying to give Adopt a Blog some publicity in order to get it moved to more devoted hands. And if ESWN doesn’t get blocked for all the things he writes about, I really don’t see why I should worry. Still, I’m paranoid.
So far the AP article has already earned me one new friend. I found this fan mail in my inbox this morning:
> I read about you in the Washington Post today. Tell me, what is wrong with your own culture that you feel it necessary to continue with your obvious European roots to perpetrate your people’s disgusting racist practice of cultural imperialism!?
> I hope that Public Security sends your racist ass right back to Florida! You obviously received a shitty education at Florida and probably spent too much time getting wasted at frat parties.
> Come to NYC’s Chinatown and we will show you how us Chinese here deal with scum like you!
It’s like this guy can see right into my *soul!* Amazing.
26
Mar 2005Chinese College Dorms
Here’s a photo comparison of some Chinese college dorms. (Sorry, none of these pictures were taken for the purpose of comparing the dorm rooms, so they’re not perfect.)
Some of the commonalities you will find are: no full mattresses, no hot running water in the room, one room, not super spacious. Students get hot water by bringing it in thermoses (see Hangzhou pic). There are public showering facilities.
Hangzhou
ZUCC, my former workplace, is definitely the nicest of the three. There are only four bunks in a rather large room by Chinese dorm standards. The bunks have decently thick pads. There’s running water (cold) in the room’s own bathroom, and a squat toilet. You can’t see them, but I’m sure at least some of the students have computers on their desks.
Unidentified Location in China
I believe this photo to be more typical of many dorm rooms across China. The “bed pad” is probably a woven mat. It’s hard to tell if that top “bunk” is actually a bunk or not, but by the “toothbrush cups” on the desk we can deduce that six students live in this room. The clothes you see hanging up are drying after being hand-washed. I’ve seen other (poor) schools in Hangzhou that looked like this.
Beijing
I actually stayed one night in this very room in 2001. I forget the name of the school, but the campus was located northwest of city center, within walking distance of the Summer Palace. (Don’t misunderstand; I’m not trying to imply that Tsinghua Universtity dorms or Peking University dorms look anything like this!) Note the pipes coming out of the walls. The light hung from a wire in the ceiling. The newspapers are pasted to the walls because the white paint is so cheap that it will rub off on you if you touch it directly. You can see the woven bed mat here. The white object on the upper bunk is a blanket, not a pad.
If you have pictures to add to the comparison, please e-mail them to me.
23
Mar 2005Closer Subtitle Surrealism
Everyone knows that in China piracy of American movies runs rampant. The USA acts all angry, and every now and then Beijing makes an attempt to do something about it in order to placate the WTO. Nothing new. I really couldn’t care less about Hollywood’s lost revenues. China’s pirated DVDs do affect my life in other less expected ways, however.
New American releases are obtained as early as possible and mass-produced in China quickly and cheaply. The earlier an eagerly awaited Hollywood title hits the streets in DVD form, the quicker it will be snatched up by movie fans. It should come as no surprise, then, that the quality of translation of the Chinese subtitles for these DVDs can be less than reliable. I’d say that the translations for Chinese subtitles on DVDs fit into three categories:
- Professional. These are usually obtained from an official source and are quite trustworthy. The Chinese is often natural and idiomatic.
- Hit and Miss. Whoever did the translation could understand a lot of the English dialogue and translate it with a degree of accuracy, but there are clearly some mistakes. Sometimes you can even tell what English word or phrase the translator thought he heard, based on the Chinese. This category can cause some confusion for Chinese viewers, but it’s usually good enough overall to tell the story.
- WTF?! For some movies (often the earliest, fuzzy camcorder pirated editions) the “translator” clearly did nothing more than guess at what the people are saying based on visual clues. This can be pretty hilarious if you can understand the original dialogue as well as the Chinese, but it must be very frustrating for the average viewer relying on the Chinese subtitles.
OK, so this whole situation is kind of funny… except for the fact that it can ruin my movie experiences. Why? Because if I’m watching an American movie with my girlfriend, she reads the subtitles. Conscientious boyfriend that I am, I can’t help but do periodic translation checks to ensure that my girlfriend is getting a decent idea of what’s going on. The more mistakes I notice, the more I pay attention to the subtitles so that I can clue her in on important dialogue. Often, before long I’m finding myself explaining the movie in Chinese instead of enjoying it. I guess I can live with that, though, since the movies cost $1 each.
But back to the absurdity of the whole thing. Can you imagine it? A Hollywood movie. The original dialogue has been chucked out the window, save for a few sturdy globs here and there. The rest of the dialogue has just been… made up. Fabricated. By some Chinese guy who’s undoubtedly poorly paid and under a lot of pressure to get the subtitles done now. And I don’t think I have to say that he’s unlikely to have a strong education in Western culture. That’s OK, he can still do subtitles for Western movies with themes ranging from terrorism to Catholic traditions to abnormal psychology. No problem.
The scary thing is that if he’s any good, some Chinese viewers might not realize they’ve been swindled. They may have gotten an alternate version of the story — which shared the same visuals as the original — that was convincing enough that they think they understood it as it was meant to be understood. “I thought the reviews said something about brilliant social commentary,” they reflect for just a few moments after finishing the movie. “Those silly Americans….”
Well, I can do more than just make suppositions, in this case. I actually transcribed a scene from a Chinese DVD copy of the Oscar-nominated film Closer. I transcribed the original English dialogue, but I also translated the Chinese subtitles into English for comparison.
Dan’s lines are in a rich blue. Alice’s lines are in a dark pink. Since the Chinese subtitles are only a shadow of their English counterparts, Dan’s lines translated from Chinese are in a lighter blue under the original, and Alice’s lines translated from Chinese are in a lighter pink under the original. I have added a 汉 at the beginning of the translated-from-Chinese lines just to keep it as clear as possible. You’ll find that it can be a little difficult keeping the parallel (occasionally intersecting) dialogues in your head at once.
(On the bus.)
A: How did you end up writing obituaries?
汉A: What kinds of things do you like?D: Well, I had dreams of being a writer…
汉D: I like drinking beer.D: But I had no voice — what am I saying??
汉D: But I don’t drink often. Also…D: …I had no talent. So I ended up in obituaries, which is…
汉D: I love singing. I can sing many songs.D: …the Siberia of journalism.
汉D: …including German folk songs.A: Tell me what you do. I wanna imagine you in Siberia.
汉A: I hope I’ll have a chance to hear you sing.D: Really?
汉D: Really?A: Mm.
汉A: Mm.D: Well… we call it “the obits page.”
汉D: Well… we don’t often sing.D: There’s three of us. Me, Graham, and Harry.
汉D: Because everyone is really busy.D: When I get to work, without fail — are you sure you wanna know?
汉D: Especially when I’m working. Extremely busy.(She nods.)
D: Well, if someone important died, we go to the “deep freeze.”
汉D: If someone died, we would sing the funeral hymn.D: Which is, um, a computer file with all the obituaries, and we find that person’s life.
汉D: Although I rarely sing, singing is something I can’t do without in my life.A: People’s obituaries are written while they’re still alive?
汉A: Do people like your singing?D: Some people’s. Then Harry — he’s the editor — he decides who we’re going to lead with…
汉D: Some people. Sometimes we get invitations [to sing].D: We make calls, we check facts…
汉D: Some are favors, some paid…D: At six we stand around at the computer and look at the next day’s page…
汉D: We’re all happy to do it; the money doesn’t matter. It’s great.D: …make final changes, add a few euphemisms for our own amusement…
汉D: It’s a kind of addiction. But it’s not like alcoholism.A: Such as?
汉A:D: “He was a convivial fellow.” …meaning he was an alcoholic.
汉D: I have a really strange friend. A homosexual.D: “He valued his privacy.” …gay. “Enjoyed his privacy” …raging queen.
汉D: But he’s content with his lot in life.A: What would my euphemism be?
汉A: Guess what kind of person I am.D: “She was disarming.”
汉D: You’re a cute girl.A: That’s not a euphemism.
汉A: I’m not cute at all.D: Yes it is.
汉D: Yes, you are.(Some time passes…)
D: What were you doing in New York?
汉D: What were you doing in New York?A: You know.
汉A: You know.D: Well, no, I don’t… What, were you… studying?
汉D: No, I don’t know. Are you… studying?A: Stripping.
汉A: Struggling.A: Look at your little eyes.
汉A: Your eyes are so pretty.D: I can’t see my little eyes.
汉D: Your eyes are even prettier.
Impressive, no? For my own amusement, I have graphed the two dialogues below:
I should note that the whole movie was not this bad. This is a particularly WTF scene subtitle-wise. The subtitles of my copy of Closer are probably halfway between the WTF and Hit and Miss categories overall. Love stories are not so hard to figure out, but a relatively inconsequential bus ride with few context clues just unleashes the imagination of the “translator,” it would seem.
This example, I’m afraid, is by no means unrepresentative of the subtitle work provided by the hard-working DVD pirates. What are the ramifications of this? Well, it means every time I talk to a Chinese person about a movie we’ve seen separately, I feel a gap. Sure, we watched the same movie, but we may very well have experienced a somewhat different story. Exaggeration? Perhaps. But then again, maybe every scene of that movie was translated similarly to the scene above. You just don’t know. Furthermore, until this situation changes, the average Chinese citizen’s efforts at foreign film appreciation have been thoroughly sabotaged.
21
Mar 2005The Developing
I started my existence in China in Hangzhou, a very pleasant city as Chinese cities go. Now I live in Shanghai, China’s model modern city and an economic monster. I think it’s good to keep in mind that these cities are not representative of China as a whole. It’s good to keep in mind that China is still a developing nation. It can be remarkably easy to forget… that “developing” means a whole lot more than the public’s stubborn spitting habit. Pictures can be a good reminder.
Pictures of Zhuzhou, Hunan, China. Some of it looks very familiar. Some of it, thankfully, does not.
Don’t miss the comparison of Zhuzhou (China), Kochi (Japan), and Piscataway, New Jersey (USA). This is pretty old stuff, but I thought I’d post it now anyway.