06
May 2004
Dwarfism and Chinese
I have lived in China for almost four years. This means that I have missed out on a lot of new TV shows over the years. I don’t mind at all for the most part; I’m not a big fan of TV. But occasionally I do like to pick up some TV shows on DVD. Recently I was watching an episode of CSI which dealt with dwarves.
There was one scene in particular which caught my attention. Character Nick Stokes is talking to Gil Grissom and uses the term “midget.” Grissom corrects him, telling him, “it’s dwarves or little people.” I didn’t think much of it at the time, other than a faint curiosity as to why the term “midget” is considered offensive.
Later I learned the reason from the LPA Online FAQ:
> In some circles, a midget is the term used for a proportionate dwarf. However, the term has fallen into disfavor and is considered offensive by most people of short stature. The term dates back to 1865, the height of the “freak show” era, and was generally applied only to short-statured persons who were displayed for public amusement, which is why it is considered so unacceptable today.
Later, when discussing this issue with a Chinese friend, I became very curious about the corresponding Chinese terminology. In that scene in CSI three terms were given: two acceptable, and one offensive in English. “Dwarf” seems the most scientific, as the medical condition is often referred to as “dwarfism,” although “dwarf” also has its own specific role in fantasy literature. “Little people” seems to be a rather new everyday euphemism. “Midget” is offensive for the reasons listed above. So how was this scene translated in the subtitles? For the most part, I find CSI’s Chinese subtitles to be very well done.
This is what I found:
– Dwarfism (the medical condition): 矮小症 (ai xiao zheng)
– Dwarf: 侏儒 (zhu ru)
– Midget: 侏儒 (zhu ru)
– Little person: 小人 (xiao ren)
I’m no expert on Chinese medical terminology, but the translation for “dwarfism” seems pretty solid (although it identifies it as an illness, which is not necessarily the case).
The translation runs into serious difficulty when it comes to “dwarf” and “midget,” however. Note that in the above translations, they’re the exact same word! The term 侏儒 (zhu ru) in Chinese has definite negative connotations, so it seems like a good translation for “midget,” but not dwarf.
Speaking of dwarves, the Chinese term used in the translation of The Lord of the Rings is none of these. It’s 矮人 (ai ren), an old term referring to a race of people of short stature — something like “pygmy.” That translation seems like a good translation for the fantasy world.
Back to CSI. The translation of “little person,” 小人 (xiao ren), is probably the worst. It was translated word-for-word, using the Chinese characters for “little” and “person.” The thing is, in Chinese the word 小人 (xiao ren) has a meaning all its own. It means a lowly person, a mean person, a dirty rat. [In Shanghainese and some other dialects it means “child.”]
So if you use the translations above, the scene completely falls apart. Originally it was:
> NICK: Okay. So, back to the midgets.
> (GRISSOM looks sharply at NICK.)
> GRISSOM: Nick … “Dwarves” or “Little People”.
> (NICK nods at the correction.)
With these Chinese translations, the meaning becomes:
> NICK: Okay. So, back to the midgets.
> (GRISSOM looks sharply at NICK.)
> GRISSOM: Nick … “Midgets” or “Dirty Little Rats”.
> (NICK nods at the correction.)
Evidently the translator knew something was off, though, and changed the dialogue a bit to get around the linguistic problems. (The above dialogue was not actually the one in the Chinese subtitles.)
The concept of political correctness is still evolving in China. It seems at this point, though, that the little people of China are still out of luck.
05
May 2004May Holiday
I’m in the middle of my “Labor Day” week of vacation, and enjoying it immensely. I am no longer sick, and have managed not to pick up any more pets. I’m working on my site and working on my book (that will be published some day!).
And now Carl and Jamie are visiting from ZUCC.
The only damper is that I have to work this weekend, and then all next week. Why? It’s the Chinese way. They still don’t get the whole “vacation” idea. (Refer to my explanation from last year.)
03
May 2004Archives at Last!
I installed Movable Type way back in November, 2003, but it wasn’t until this week that I finally got my archives all in order. Let me tell you, it’s a nightmare to take 200+ old posts that had been formatted for Blogger, reformat them individually (MT can only do so much when it imports them), and assign categories to each. I even fixed my old internal links so that they point to the correct new MT entry instead of the old Blogger entry. Ugh. But it’s all done, will never need to be done again, and I really like the results.
Please check out the newly revamped Sinosplice Archives. They’re very browsable now. In reorganizing them I spent a lot of time reading old entries, and I was surprised at how many good ones I wrote back in the day. If you’re a relatively new reader and like what you see here, take a look.
Many thanks to John B of zerodispance for the MT tag free handout. I really like the way he set up his archives, and it saved me a lot of trouble because I didn’t have to figure everything out on my own.
01
May 2004Rabbits
I had been resisting naming my rabbits. I guess it was because I never really expected them to live long. But as the end of week one rolled around, I decided I should name them. The vendor said they were a male/female pair, so I figured I should name them as a pair. They’re Chinese rabbits and I’m in China, so Chinese names seemed appropriate. I named the girl Tai Tai (台台) and the boy Bo Bo (伯伯). (These names may seem a little strange, but they have their roots in Chinese culture — anyone get them?)
Here are some pictures I took to emphasize their smallness:
Yesterday my rabbits presented me with my first “birthday surprise.” I came out of my bedroom and took a look at their cage. The first thing that came into my head was, “that’s a funny way to sleep.” Suddenly realizing that the rabbit could be dead, I examined her more closely. She was alive, but seemed completely unable to move. And I had to rush out the door because a had an activity with a client kindergarten to get to. I had no choice but to leave my little rabbit to die.
When I got home, she was, indeed, dead. The other one was just fine. The worst part was that there was no good way to dispose of her little body. I could only wrap it up and chuck it in the trash. I felt bad about that.
To be honest, I couldn’t be sure that it was Tai Tai that died and not Bo Bo. Rabbits are not easy to sex when they’re that young. But I liked the name Bo Bo better, so I decided Bo Bo was the survivor. If I was wrong about which one it was, I could confront my mistake down the road and just hope that my little rabbit wasn’t left with too much of a gender identitity crisis.
(Incidentally, Bo Bo was also the name of a girl I went on one date with in Hangzhou years ago. We met on the internet. I remember that date very clearly because (1) she took a good picture of me that I used on this site’s main page for two years, and (2) we ended up talking about her mother’s death a year previous. Very heavy for a first date. I never saw her again. She was a nice enough girl, but I could never go for a girl with a moustache.)
Last night I had fun playing with Bo Bo. It was good to see that he was healthy at least.
This morning I got to sleep in because it was day one of my week-long May Day vacation. No work for seven days. When I came out of my bedroom, I saw that little Bo Bo was sleeping in too. Only he wasn’t ever waking up.
Part of me is relieved because I no longer have the responsibility of trying to raise rabbits in a city apartment. Now I’m glad I really did my best to keep them healthy, but I’m baffled as to what did them in, when they seemed so healthy but then deteriorated so rapidly without warning or apparent cause.
No more pets for a while.
Expect more (less depressing) site updates this first week of May. I finally updated the About Page recently and the picture in the upper right of this page to reflect my new home. More to come. Also, Adopt a Blog is not dead, just stalled.
30
Apr 2004Shelley in Xishuang Banna
My friend and (previously) co-worker Shelley is currently making a long trip through the parts of China he hasn’t seen yet. I’ve posted about Shelley before, because I think he’s a really good guy with a lot of appreciation for Chinese culture as well as an impressive level of Chinese attained in only two years, and with no formal classes. Anyway, Shelley recently sent out an e-mail about his experiences and reactions to Xishuang Banna in Yunnan province. I’m posting an excerpt with his permission.
> I reached the village of Manpo (Bulang ethnicity) by early afternoon on Monday and had intended to push on. But while resting in a sort of community area I struck up a conversation with a man who could speak strained Mandarin. He was busily shaving his 4-year-old son’s head as he insisted I spend the night in his home. At first I politely declined since staying in Manpo would necessitate a second night in the region, but then I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be able to find lodging elsewhere by nightfall. So I followed this man, named Ai Zhai Xiang, up to his house. (The name of every man in the village begins with “Ai”, and every woman’s name begins with “Ni.” So I’ll just refer to him as Mr. Zhai from now on.)
> Before I go on I need to mention that Americans are very well-liked in the village because the recently built school (a cement-and-white-tile eyesore on the edge of the village) was built with 70,000 RMB from an American living in Kunming. Thanks to him and the (so far) polite travelers who have passed through, Americans have an outstanding reputation in the village of Manpo. The school, like all others in China, isn’t free though. It costs 5 RMB per student per day of instruction. It’s a large asking price for these villagers but there’s no cheaper way to get a Chinese teacher out to the village. I learned from another villager that their expenses usually only total 10 RMB per month because they make everything else they need. I never learned how much they make from selling their crops.
> My first impressions of Mr. Zhai and his life were pretty heart-wrenching. Mr. Zhai introduced himself as a farmer and told me a little about the work he does. He was shirtless the whole time I was there, displaying a few scars plus a significant oblong bump the size of a pill in the center of his chest. He explained that this is some sort of tablet with his name inscribed on it that his father inserted into his chest when he was very young. This is apparently not a village-wide custom, and in fact I never quite understood why he had this tablet other than it might have something to do with being raise to be a monk. (He said he “graduated” after a few years.) Mr. Zhai also sighed about how old he was, already having a 4-year-old son and a 4-month-old daughter. I figured him to be around 30. He corrected me, “23.” Almost nonchalantly in conversation he mentioned that his children are actually his 2nd and 4th; the 1st and 3rd passed away. I also learned that the woman he introduced as his mother was actually his step-mother; his real mother passed away when he was 4. He prepared a dinner (his wife went to eat with friends) of spicy fish, scrambled eggs with a weed-like vegetable, and a coarse “red rice.” He explained it was rice from his own field, the kind that Han Chinese don’t like to eat. “They like to turn it into white rice, but I like it better this way.” We also drank this sort of clear whiskey, like Chinese baijiu, but much more foul tasting. Still we toasted with smiles. He then rolled out a mat for me to sleep on that night.
> The second wave of impressions hit me like this: Mr. Zhai said that a few nights ago 4 American women had stayed at his home for two nights. He was encouraging me to stay longer but I explained that I had to move on. He also said that he had seen me on the road earlier when he rode past on his motorcycle. First thought, “Oh that was you?” Second thought, “Oh you have a motorcycle?” Then his younger sister came in with her friends; she had just returned from “the big city” (Damenglong, not actually that big) with some new clothes and was showing them off. She and her friends could speak very clear and standard Mandarin; they study at the new school. I started to realize that Mr. Zhai, a simple farmer, was branching out into the hotel industry. I wondered if the details of his life were mentioned to invoke sympathy and a charitable donation. They may still very well be true, but he might not have otherwise mentioned them.
> These two opposing waves of impressions crashed together to leave me with the following conclusions: I’m glad that Mr. Zhai makes money from tourists. I’m even glad that in a year or two the road through Manpo and the region will likely bring loads of tourists who by that time will be greeted with gaudy hotels, souvenir kitsch, and staged ethnic dances. Sure, there’s a part of me that regrets this quiet rural village being turned into a tourist trap, but that part is the selfish traveler in me. Because life in Manpo and much of Xishuangbanna sucks, a lot. Besides the beautiful natural scenery, there wasn’t one thing there that made me want to stay longer than I had to. I didn’t find it quaint to visit poor villages, see smiling, filthy children, or meet brightly adorned, old women (who were probably only 30) bent under a load of vegetables. Because for me this was a vacation but for them it’s just life, every single day, until they die at around 50 or 60 years old. I’d rather see Manpo as a tourist hellhole instead of an impoverished one. Some might say that tourism will ruin the Bulang culture, and they’re probably right. But if adding a hospital to the village and teaching some basic hygiene (such as, after you cut up that raw chicken be sure to wash the knife before using it on those vegetables) ruins their culture then so be it. Others might say that I’m too set in my ways as a rich westerner to appreciate the simple tranquility of village life, and they would be right too. I couldn’t handle living in Manpo for the rest of my life, but it’s not because they lack a McDonalds. I really don’t know if I could work a field with only my hands and some basic tools, then live for the rest of the year off its yield. But I do know that I really don’t want to. So I was grateful for every swig of my bottled water, every photo taken with my digital camera, and especially for the seat on the bus that took me from Bulangshan (21 miles from Manpo) to the city of Jinghong. And by the way, I paid 10 RMB for the night and two meals at Mr. Zhai’s home.
Shelley will soon be moving to Shandong province where he will be the director (?) of a new English school there. He’s looking for teachers. Watch Sinosplice Jobs for more info soon.
Related: Sinosplice Yunnan pictures (including Xishuang Banna)
28
Apr 2004Sickness and Pets
About two weeks ago, I took a walk on a sunny day following some days of rain. I came upon a manhole cover sunken in the sidewalk, holding an inch or two of water. In that little bit of water, I was amazed to discover some 40 to 50 tadpoles swimming sluggishly around. Right on the sidewalk!
I had recently discovered that in China, it’s a common childhood thing to keep some tadpoles as pets and watch them develop. When I was younger, I had had rabbits, mice, dogs, lizards, fish, and even a snake. But never a tadpole.
The water in the manhole depression was slowly but surely evaporating, and there already wasn’t much left. I decided to rescue some of them.
I managed to get about 20 out of the depression using a spoon and a plastic bowl. I bought a little glass fishbowl and some fish food (for 7rmb total). When I fed them, they gobbled up the food greedily. Up to that point, they had been cannibalizing the weak.
Keeping the tadpoles alive proved to be harder than I expected. I’m not sure whether the water got a little too dirty or what, but they were slowly dying off.
Then last Friday I got sick. I woke up early with a case of diarrhea that was completely painless but utterly sincere. I was rushing to the toilet every 5 minutes, it seemed, and I was losing a lot of water. I had to call in sick to work. By evening I had a fever, and my girlfriend insisted I go to the hospital. So I did. It was 10:30pm.
It took forever to get treated because I had taken an anti-diarrheal and thus couldn’t supply the sample they wanted. Eventually they took blood. The Chinese medical solution to virtual any malady seems to be an IV, and this was no exception. It was midnight before I finally had the IV in me, supplying my bloodstream with vitamins and antibiotics.
For this IV treatment I was seated in the emergency room. My girlfriend kept me company for a while, but she had class in the morning, so had to leave. Being right in the emergency room, I saw all kinds of people come in. Most of them ended up with IVs.
One guy was almost catatonic, brought in on one of the cargo tricycles used all over China to transport goods. His family must have been pretty poor, not wanting to resort to hospital treatment unless absolutely necessary. About an hour later, the awful sound of a woman’s wailing came from the back of the hospital. “Someone died,” the people around me whispered.
Another woman was brought in writhing, and laid out on a gurney. She was there on an IV nearly the entire time I was, and never seemed to get much better. Eventually her husband took her away.
One guy was brought in completely unconscious by some friends. Alcohol poisoning. Baijiu, his friends said. The vile white rice wine. I’m not sure what happened to him, but his friends wondered around the room drunkenly for hours.
For a while an old man was seated next to me for his IV. At one point, he had to go to the bathroom, so the people with him unzipped him, stood him up, and had him go into a plastic bag right there.
Around 3am it started to get cold in the room, because inconsiderate people would leave the main door open. Around that time two women arrived with a man. The girls look like the type that sing at karaoke bars. Very pretty. Only one of them had been battered badly across the face. Her face was all black and blue, her eyes swollen shut. Later, hearing her talk to her friend, my suspicions were confirmed — some man had done that to her. Two of the guys in the room tried badly to hide smirks when she came in. Why, I can’t imagine. But I wanted to punch them. The girl got an IV too.
Soon thereafter, more loud sobbing seemed to indicate that someone else had died.
According to the doctor, my IV (2 bottles) was supposed to last 3 hours. They ended up lasting 5. I couldn’t sleep and had nothing to do but watch sick people. I got home at 5am. The hospital bill was 150rmb (under $20). No medications were prescribed.
I had decided to release my remaining tadpoles into the pond in Jing An Park. It seemed like a good day to do it. I waited for my girlfriend to arrive first. When she showed up, she surprised me with a gift of two cute little white rabbits.
It was a nice surprise, but also an impulisve, irresponsible purchase. I was not in the best position to care for rabbits, and I did not want to be responsible for their deaths. The vendors that sell rabbits and other little animals don’t tend to sell them in the healthiest condition to begin with.
Still, she had bought them and given them to me, so they were my responsiblity. The remaining tadpoles (less than 10) were freed. But now I had rabbits.
I was stunned by some of the “advice” I was given by various Chinese people on how to care for rabbits. Some of the things I was told: “Rabbits can’t be given water. It’ll give them diarrhea and they’ll die.” “Don’t give them vegetables, or they’ll get diarrhea and die. Give them bread.” “Don’t let them eat much grass or they’ll get diarrhea and die.”
Exactly how do these people think rabbits live in nature?! Unbelievable. Anyway, under my care, two sluggish little rabbits have become lively. They actually have both solid and liquid waste now, too, which didn’t happen for about two days, owing to their previous diet. The new diet: grass and water.
Yesterday, the evil diarrhea come back at 5am. I couldn’t go to work again. I returned to the hospital, but not the emergency room. This time I went to the part of the hospital “for foreigners.” The hospital has one big building devoted to plastic surgery. One floor deals with ordinary medical cases like mine.
To make a long story short, I was not given any clear explanation as to why I was sick. It wasn’t food poisoning. But the hospital was much cleaner and more orderly. Everyone was friendly and spoke English (until they realized they didn’t have to). I was given an IV again, which took five hours for two bottles again, but this time I was in a bed the whole time. I walked away with 4 different kinds of medication to take. The total bill was 850rmb (over $100).
So I’m feeling better now. And I have rabbits. I wonder how those tadpoles are doing…
Related entry: Verbal Horror
28
Apr 2004Back Online
Sinosplice was down for about 3 days, but it’s all been sorted out. I had renewed for another year with my host (Webmasters.com), but what I didn’t know was that after the first year, the domain name registration is not included. So my domain name registration had expired and had to be renewed. That’s done now.
A big thanks to my dad, for taking care of all that. More news soon.
23
Apr 2004Cartoon Voice Debut
I mentioned recently that I’ve done the voice of an animated pig for a series of short educational cartoons at my company. Well, the first cartoon is done, and online already. If you’re interested, go to the Melody homepage, and then under “What’s New” at the left, click on the first link (“MELODY样片”). The voices of both the pig character and the unseen native speaker are mine.
21
Apr 2004When Culture Lets Go
For this month of April, Wilson has been visiting me, staying at my place. As with any close friend, he’s more than just fun to hang out with; he provides me with new ideas to think over. He inspires me. Our conversations cover a broad range of topics, but they usually center on China. On us, and why we’re here. And on where all this is going.
After staying in Hangzhou, China for a year and a half, Wilson returned to an America he has discovered he’s pretty unsatisfied with. There’s one sentence he keeps repeating. America is culturally bankrupt.
In our many discussions, when Wilson refers to characteristics of life in the States, I can’t help but think that what he really means is life in California. California has a distinct subculture of its own, one that I associate especially closely with materialism and narcissism. But then, I’ve never really spent any time in California, and to be honest, I haven’t spent enough time in the United States in the past four years to be any real authority on current cultural trends. Regardless, one thing is clear: the lives we imagine ourselves living back in the United States right now are unfulfilling.
If it’s merely materialism we’re shunning, however, you’d think that Shanghai would be the last place either of us would want to settle. The scramble for wealth in all its forms here is nauseatingly apparent. But we don’t feel such a steely grip on our souls here. Why?
You could say that living in China has been sort of an “out of culture experience.” We have left our cultural bodies back home to float over here for a look. The result is that not only do we gain an outsider’s perspective on what’s going on in China, but we can view much more objectively what’s going on back home, and how we’re enveloped in it.
Change is unavoidable in any society. In China, it’s coming in a raging torrent, but we actually feel like we can be part of what’s directing the flow. That’s exciting. In the United States, the change feels much more sluggish, but it nevertheless seems to sweep us all away along with it, like drowning rats.
Living outside of one’s home culture just feels empowering to us. We feel much more capable of rejecting the values with which we disagree, both those from back home as well as those from China.
In spite of all these feelings, we can’t deny that it is American culture that shaped us. And we’re grateful for that. But there comes a time when you have to gather what you’ve gained and spread your wings. I like where I’ve come to rest. Like I said, the view is great.
NOTE: Those that like reading about cultural issues regarding Americans and Chinese should definitely take a look at an excellent new blog called Zai Mei Guo. It deals especially with stereotypes.
19
Apr 2004When Humor Runs Aground
I think it’s pretty universally true that humor, being culturally dependent, is a tricky undertaking in a foreign language. Just supposing you have the necessary language skills to accurately communicate what you want to, the target culture may not find your “joke” the least bit funny. On the contrary, they might be offended (this has happened to me before), they might recognize you were trying to make a joke in their language and boo your lame attempt (that always happens to me in Japan), or they might just accept your statement at face value, not realizing there was any attempt at humor involved (which seems to happen to me the most in China).
I used to think that sarcasm was unknown in China. For a long time, my every attempt at it in Chinese would fail miserably, and it wasn’t due to grammar or pronunciation. Later I learned that “sarcasm” and “satire” are both translated as one Chinese word — 讽刺 (fengci) — in most dictionaries. Say what? From my perspective, this vocabulary issue pointed to a conspicuous difference in style of humor. This “no sarcasm” issue seemed to add to the “innocent Chinese” stereotype. But was my perception correct? Does such a gaping cultural divide even exist in reality?
Since coming to Shanghai, I’ve discovered that there are plenty of Chinese people that not only understand sarcasm, but find it indispensable in their daily exchanges. It’s been very refreshing. My girlfriend is one such blessed person. The thing is, she tells me that many Shanghainese feel that other Chinese are not nearly as quick-witted in their style of humor. And I know from experience that they’re less likely to “get” sarcasm.
It seems that sarcasm is most likely to “work” here in China when it’s especially exaggerated, e.g. “Oh, THANK YOU, I’m SO HAPPY!” A “wry” style of humor seems pretty much completely unappreciated here.
Here’s an example of a real incident from my workplace:
HER: What’s a good way to teach the beach lesson vocabulary?
ME: That’s easy. Just take them to the beach.
HER: But there’s no beach nearby!
ME: Stop making excuses!
HER: (whimper)
OK, I know what I said wasn’t really funny, but the point was that she took my reply seriously when I never expected her to in the first place. My second response fared no better.
A former co-worker of mine has extensive experience telling jokes to Chinese audiences in Chinese. His Chinese is quite good, and in most cases, he is able to elicit the desired chuckles. His advice to me (should I choose to carry on the torch at future training seminars) was: “When you tell a joke to a Chinese audience, you may need to make the ‘punchline’ a bit later than you would ordinarly deem necessary.”
I’ll share the joke he told me. It’s a generic “smart people, dumb people” joke, which he filled in with Chinese and Japanese for convenience (and automatic audience approval).
Two groups of foreigners were visiting the USA. One was a group of three Japanese businessmen, and the other was a group of three Chinese businessmen. They happened to be taking the same train.
The Japanese bought their three tickets, but then happened to notice that the Chinese guys behind them only bought one. They were confused by this, thinking perhaps there was a miscommunication, but decided to mind their own business and not say anything.
Once on the train, the two groups were sitting very near each other. As the ticket-taker started coming around, the Japanese watched the Chinese with interest.
Suddenly the three Chinese guys sprang up, walked down to the end of the car, and crammed into the small restroom together. When the ticket-taker came by, he could tell someone was in the restroom, so he knocked on the door, calling “TICKET.” The Chinese slid their one ticket under the door. The ticket-taker collected it and moved on, and the Chinese came out shortly thereafter and sat back down.
The Japanese were duly impressed by the crafty Chinese.
On the train ride back, as luck would have it, the same two groups wound up on the same train. The Japanese, nervously seated with one ticket among the three of them, eyed the Chinese as they entered. The Chinese didn’t seem to have a single ticket. The Japanese didn’t know what the Chinese were up to, but they were nevertheless glad they had a chance to use the new trick.
When the ticket-taker drew near, both groups headed for the restrooms. The Japanese crammed into the restroom on the right side, the Chinese crammed into the restroom on the left side.
After a few seconds, one of the Chinese quietly emerged from the restroom and headed to the one occupied by the Japanese, who were nervously waiting for the ticket-taker. The Chinese guy knocked on the door and called out “TICKET.”
The joke, in its original form, is supposed to end there. My co-worker found it wise to add the following for his Chinese audience, however:
The Japanese slid their ticket under the door. The Chinese guy grabbed it and went back into the other restroom.
Part of the appreciation of a joke is making the final connection yourself. It seems that the two cultures differ on where, exactly, that “final connection” is.
The Chinese love to crack open nuts, crabs, shrimp, turtles, etc. when they eat. They consider it part of the joy of eating. Many foreigners find it unnecessary work. Could it be that when it comes to humor, the situation is reversed?
18
Apr 2004Couldn't Resist…
For all I know, this has been floating around for years already, but I just got it via e-mail (thanks Penny!). Not obscene.
I briefly pondered over whether I should be disturbed or just amused. I went with the latter reaction.
(NOTE: For more similar juvenile humor that’s almost obscene but not quite, check this out too.)
14
Apr 2004Not just singing and dancing
They’ve been keeping me busy with lots of different tasks at work lately. I once complained that foreign teachers in China are expected to play the role of “singing dancing game-playing clown entertainers.” Working in Shanghai was supposed to get me out of that role and into more serious work where I could use Chinese. Ironically, while it has succeeded in that respect, it has also simultaneously brought me closer than ever to the “singing dancing game-playing clown entertainer” role.
My work today was an interesting combination of mind-numbing drudgery and light-hearted fun work. The fun part was doing the voice dubbing for a cartoon in which I play the bilingual role of a pig character. Originally they had me playing some rascally racoon, but I had trouble saying my Chinese lines quickly in character (i.e. altering my voice) and with proper feeling, so I got switched to the slow-witted pig. That’s fine by me. My lines are way easier, and they really liked my pig voice. (Those that wanted to hear me speaking Chinese may soon get their wish, if this animation goes public.)
Then after that I had to join in on a small group singing the chorus for a children’s song. Anyone who knows me knows I hate singing in public (especially karaoke!), so to have my singing actually recorded is a nightmare. But in a group it actually went OK.
When I’m part of a team giving 6-hour seminars to Chinese kindergarten teachers, presentation is key. I have to use mostly Chinese when I’m in the spotlight (unless I’m specifically covering pronunciation), but I also have to keep it lively and entertaining. Games, smiles, jokes. Education with a heavy dose of entertainment.
Today’s fun was balanced with translation work. I’m helping the parent company in Taiwan with one of its new products. Apparently in Taiwan there’s a lot of immigrant labor (from Vietnam, Thailand, the Phillipines, etc.) filling the demand for maids, and “mail-order bride” type situations as well. I have to leave out the details, but this product aims to alleviate the multi-lingual problems posed by the situation. A small sample of what I’ve been translating into English:
- Yesterday grandpa went to the hospital for a stool test.
- Do you want white bread or wheat bread?
- International calls are expensive. It’s best if you write a letter.
- I want to send this month’s salary home to my husband in Vietnam.
- I don’t understand when you speak fast, but I will study hard.
- Your soup is really not bad! It’s sour but tastes good, with that Vietnamese flavor.
- If that’s how it is, A-Fang, I’m sorry, but I must send you home.
OK, so they’re not all this mean and depressing, but it’s not fun work. I don’t blame the company at all, either; it’s just responding to a situation.
On the upside, I’m learning a lot of interesting/crazy Taiwanese terminology. [Does anyone know of any definitive list of Taiwanese/Mainland vocabulary discrepancies?]
Anyway, work remains engrossing. Now, back to that translation….
13
Apr 2004Jobs in Shanghai
My company is looking to hire a few people for part-time or short-term work, and it has enlisted my aid. I decided to add a new section to my site:
If you’re looking for work or for teachers, please take a look. Feel free to link away.
08
Apr 2004EFL for Chinese learners
Today at work I did some research online as part of my task to develop a pronunciation program to benefit the Chinese teachers in my company. I found some good stuff (this page being exactly what I was looking for, though I don’t find it 100% accurate), but perhaps the most interesting was a paper entitled Explicit Instruction in the Communicative Method: Pedagogical Approaches for Successfully Teaching the Sound System of a Second Language by Erika Hoyt.
The paper was written in 2001 and doesn’t cover anything especially new or revolutionary, but it was helpful in that it referenced specific issues for Chinese and Spanish speakers, two groups with which I am particularly familiar. Also, jargon is kept to a minimum, so if you have any interest at all in the wonderful world of drudgery we lovingly call “linguistics” you should be able to get through it without much trouble at all. And if you’re a EFL teacher, there’s a good chance you’ll learn something useful.
I just want to highlight a few of the issues I could relate to most.
On Requisites for Successfully Learning a Foreign Language
- a positive and active approach to learning the target language
- an outgoing and tolerant approach to the language and its native speakers
- continual experimentation with and revising their Interlanguage of the target language
- the willingness to use the target language in ‘real communication’
- the ability to think in the second language (L2) as a different system from their first language (L1)
Having lived in China for a while, I’ve come into contact with quite a few long-term foreign residents with varying degrees of Chinese ability, ranging from extremely fluent to practically zero. Looking at the above list, I can think of various cases (of other people as well as my own learning experiences) in which progress is so incredibly limited by just one specific item. And it’s different ones for different people.
The last item came as a slight surprise, but upon a little reflection I could think of examples of that too.
On Rhythm and Stress
> Another example of L2 sound perception involves Chinese speaking ESL students who do not use any rhythmic stress in their English speech because they are transferring from their native language. Their lack of stress results in unnatural, abrupt speech and lexical confusion; syllable stress plays an essential communicative role in distinguishing between “terRIfic” and “TERrify” or the questions “What’s in the desert?” and “What’s in the dessert?” (Chen, Fan & Lin, 1996, p. 5)….
In their article about acquiring English stress, English language researchers Chi-fen Chen, Chuen-Yn Fan and Hsian-Pao Lin write that native Chinese speakers remain unaware of the difference in Chinese and English stress until they are explicitly told (Chen et al, 1996, p. 4)….
Students learning English who speak a native language with an even stress pattern, such as Chinese, benefit from contrasting stressed and unstressed sounds. One way to highlight English stress rules is to outline the qualities of a stressed unit of sound — loud, long vowel, full clarity and higher pitched — and unstressed sound — quiet, short, reduced vowel clarity and lower pitched (Chen et al, 1996, p.7). The teacher could make a chart and/or give an aural explanation of the different qualities. After understanding the difference between stressed and unstressed sounds, the students will be able to identify stress patterns. Chen suggests that students pair up and play a stress game.
The problem of rhythm and stress is one I noticed way back in 1998 when I first started tutoring a Chinese grad student (who would eventually nudge me toward Hangzhou), and one I’m still seeing at my current job. It’s something I have to attach special importance to at work, and I suspect it’s something that EFL teachers across Chinese would do well to incorporate into their lesson plans. I think it’s often neglected.
On Outside Sources for Language Learning
> Using many different sources of language input will help the students’ register flexibility in listening comprehension. Students need to know that target language has many different speakers and pronunciations beyond the way that the teacher speaks. Also, integrating different speakers of the language into the students’ learning experience will help the learners to develop an outgoing approach towards the native speakers of the language, which is one of the characteristics of successful language students.
This is so very true. My best students in China were frequently big fans of music, movies, or TV in English, and they do things like getting part-time jobs using English and writing in English blogs.
Anyway, the paper has a variety of other good stuff too. I give it points for including the “McGurk Effect” because it’s my favorite linguistic term. (Hey, it’s really cool, and it sounds funny!)
It would be great if more EFL teachers in China (外教) actually cared about their teaching. And for those that do, but don’t have the relevant educational background, it would be great if they would learn a little about linguistics. But maybe that’s asking for too much…
Related: Sinosplice’s Teaching Guide.
08
Apr 2004ZUCC Community Photos
his trusty camera at his side.
Wherever he goes,
he leaves photo galleries in his wake.
06
Apr 2004New Blogs for Chinese Study
In the past few days I’ve gotten word of two new blogs that should be of interest to students of Chinese of at least intermediate level.
The first one is by Stian in Hangzhou, titled “In the Middle.” Stian takes digital pictures of Chinese “posters, black board writings or graffiti” and puts them online with accompanying translations. Neat idea. He tries to stay neutral about the contents, hence the name. His current entries are school notices.
[I’m also glad to see that he’s using ModBlog, which contributes to Adopt a Blog‘s aim of spreading China blogs out on as many different servers as possible.]
The other one is News in Chinese, by Roddy (of Chinese Forums fame) in Beijing. In this blog Roddy provides links to news stories in Chinese. The goal is to make the task of browsing for interesting news stories easier for the student of Chinese. I’ll be using this one.
One small concern, though. As of this afternoon, News in Chinese was blocked for me here in Shanghai. I hope it’s just a temporary quirk, as Roddy says there’s no problem connecting directly in Beijing.
Both new blogs are already in the China Blog List.
Update: News in Chinese is now viewable for me. Must have been a random temporary thing.
05
Apr 2004Preferred Nomenclature
Here’s a test for your Chinese friends:
The caption says, “Where is the renxingdao?” I can’t simply translate renxingdao. That’s the whole point of this post.
I came across this problem a while ago, but I didn’t examine the question carefully until it became involved with my work. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of translation from Chinese into English. It’s not just any Chinese, but Taiwanese Chinese. This means I have to read traditional characters (which I’m happy about — it’s good practice, and not really very hard), and it also means that I have to deal with regional vocabulary variations (e.g. in Taiwan, the word 脚踏车 (jiaotache) seems to be used much more often for “bicycle” than in mainland China, where 自行车 (zixingche) is the norm).
I thought the word renxingdao might be one of those cases of different usages, but it turned out to be universally confusing, whether I was asking mainlanders or Taiwanese.
Let me cut to the chase. In my experience, if you ask a Chinese person where the renxingdao is in the above image, they’re almost equally likely to point to the crosswalk as the sidewalk.
This is kinda hard to take, because it seems like the distinction is an important one, seeing as how one of them happens to be in the middle of the road. I asked quite a few people this morning (from both sides of the strait), and I got them all embroiled in a debate as to what exactly a renxingdao is. They came up with all kinds of alternate nomenclature for both “crosswalk” as well as “sidewalk,” but came to no conclusion as to the precise meaning of renxingdao.
Ah, language issues. The translation work continues. I’m learning a lot.
NOTE: the above image is the famous Abbey Road. The image was taken from this site.
02
Apr 2004Resting
I won’t be posting for a little while because I’m going to Hangzhou for the weekend. I had worked 11 days straight (including a nice business trip to Wuxi), so I took off today, giving myself a 3-day weekend. Wilson arrived for a visit Tuesday, so we gotta return to our old stomping grounds. Also, a new club in Hangzhou called Lava is having a big bash tonight (Friday, April 2) organized by my friends in Hangzhou [more info].
I also expect to be devoting a fair amount of time when I come back to the Adopt a Blog project. I’m very pleased that it seems to be taking off. Please, get involved!
31
Mar 2004The Adopt a Blog Project
When the government blocked another blogging service recently, I became nervous, because it means that the government continues to view blogs as a threat. Regardless, bloggers’ responses to the block reveal that they are not going to admit defeat so easily. As a result, I see two possible eventual outcomes: (1) the government decides to give up the blocking effort, or (2) the government steps up its efforts.
What scares me the most is the possibility that what we have seen so far is only a small taste of what is to come. We know the government is working on more advanced internet filtering technology. Every time I can’t access my site for small periods of time, I wonder if I’ve been blocked. When it comes back online, there’s still a nagging suspicion that I’ve been tested and tagged for a future block should the need arise.
Proxies work well enough for the time being, but these services could easily be blocked as well. And where would we be then?
This thought process led to my idea for the Adopt a Blog project. It could enable bloggers to skirt the current blocks, as well as ready the community defensively against a possible bleaker future with regards to freedom online.
It is my strong hope that this project will be accepted by the blogging community globally, or at the very least contribute to the formation of a lasting solution. Please, if you care at all about freedom of speech, spread the word. Adopt a Blog.
30
Mar 2004Thoughts on the Blockings
Recently Typepad blogs have been added to the list of blog services blocked by the Chinese government. This is already old news. Some bloggers have responded by turning their blogs’ background color to black as a sort of “virtual protest.” I guess that’s cool, but I think they’re going to have to either get used to black backgrounds or just accept the blocks.
Just before the Typepad block, some major Chinese blog services were blocked temporarily. But before that, the last big blocking to directly affect expat blogs in China was the blocking of Blogspot (AKA “Blockspot”). Guess what? Blogspot is still blocked. The big stink bloggers made about it then had little effect, and it seemed to have even gotten more international media coverage than the most recent block of Typepad.
After Blogspot was blocked, many bloggers adopted a less direct approach to the problem. It’s the same one Napster users adopted when that great giant was struck down. They found another service they could use. The Sinosplice Network began, and at the same time the number of other blogging services commonly used multiplied. Things seemed to be peaceful for a while, until the most recent blockings.
Thankfully, due to bloggers’ decision to branch out in the blogging services they used, the most recent block did not affect as large a proportion of China blogs as the Blogspot block did, although some of our favorite blogs were among the fallen (Danwei.org the most notable in my own personal reading habits).
Those of us that follow tech news may have recently read about the biological principle of genetic variation helping to guard populations against disease being applied to the computer world. I think the same principle applies to the blogging community in China.
Yes, they shouldn’t block us, but I don’t think mere ardent idealism is going to get us very far in this case. We need to be smart. We need to use lots of different blogging services. It would be best if every blog had its own URL, each with a different hosting service in a different IP range, but that’s a little unrealistic.
Unfortunately, the existence of the (rather complete) China Blog List could be a big help to those that would thwart us. I can’t really help that.
Also, should the powers that be ever decide to block any blog in the Sinosplice network, this network I put together could easily be taken down in one fell stroke. I can’t really help that either. But it seems that if the new blockings are going to continue (and we currently have no good reason to believe that they won’t), further grouping blogs on one server (like Living in China) is only going to hurt the “blog population” in the long run unless that server has some aces up its sleeve.
Furthermore, even if we can’t keep our attackers from accessing the full China Blog List, we can at least be a little more subtle in our methods of circumventing the blocks. Those outside of China don’t need the information, but those within China might do well to pass the information around a little more privately. There is much more to the proxy solution than the several websites which are most well known, but the full extent of our knowledge need not be publicly displayed.
Let’s be smart. We’re not in our native countries, so our instinctive responses are not necessarily the most appropriate.
A famous Japanese idiom comes to mind: the nail that sticks up gets hammered.
And we know this is true in China as well.