A New Context

Misfit

Among the first questions encountered by foreigners in China or studying Chinese is the deceptively simple "Why?" There is an infinity of potentially good reasons to study Chinese and travel to China, and it was to my own disadvantage that after I had decided to start on this course, I rarely if ever considered why I had done so. Because it was cool? Because it was hard? I found a vacuum of justification in my own mind, and being slightly neurotic about the whys and hows of things, I began a long struggle to fill it.

When I first began studying Chinese, the reasons were obvious:

• China is a rising power in the world and its influence will create more job opportunities for those who speak Mandarin.
• China has a diverse and lengthy history worth studying.
• Chinese girls are cute. The food is also quite tasty.
• Chinese is hard and I should do things that are challenging.
• China is located as far away from Ohio as I can reasonably go.

All well and good, but my simplistic logic (STATUS + MONEY + INTEREST (+GIRLS?) = WORTHY GOAL) could be applied to anything that is challenging and far away. What is it that eventually snags 'China hands', afficionados of Chinese culture, history, et al and draws them back again and again in what usually becomes a lifelong quest? I don't think it's a simple question of taste, because all but the purest fetishists (oxymoron?) can enjoy life and prosper in a variety of foreign locales. Myself, I remain greatly interested in German history, grown out of an interest in my own German heritage and, well, those intangibles...but China is something different.

How many times do we hear that, though? China is special, China is unique, China is whatever...it's the world's exception to whatever rule you happen to be quoting. Surely every place on earth has its bucolic countryside, its gritty urban wastelands, its dark chapters in history and its shining moments of achievement and glory. The new image for China in the international eye is the contradiction, the donkey cart hauling Dell computers, the impoverished coal miner making a call on his Motorola razr, and so forth - these images have become almost canonized along with the old Orientalist subset of bearded dragons, pointed hats, pagodas, dainty women with fans, and kung fu acrobatics to create a new China stereotype. And it is, unequivocally, complete and utter bullshit. None of it fits right, none of it is always or even consistently true, and you cannot rely on any previous experience to guide future decision making. Everything is evolving, everything is growing, being torn down, or exploding unexpectedly. China doesn't know what to do with itself, and it doesn't quite fit its own conceptions of itself. Even the scholarly community has devolved into infighting on the nature of China's evolution. China is a misfit in an already chaotic world.

Enter the foreigner. Greeted by the tremendous 热闹 (liveliness) of Beijing, he could be forgiven for interpreting it as 吵闹 (noise) and seeking to get as far away from it as he can. But given time, the false stereotypes, both old and new, fall by the wayside, new ones arise and are equally foolish, but that's life and eventually certain concrete realities become clear. I've always felt that the ability to understand another's desires is the foundation of empathy, which in turn is the starting-point for cross-cultural understanding. As a misfit myself in a confused culture, I've found that not only do the shouts of LAOWAI LAOWAI eventually become more amusing than strange, but the very fact that I unequivocally do not 'belong' in China is somewhat nullified by the current historical moment, when one can make a case for nearly anything not 'belonging' in China. This moment of profound transformation will not last forever, and there is much to experience and enjoy while it lasts.

There's more to it than that, certainly, and living abroad is not a nonstop joyride. But in the midst of all these changes, living in Beijing, struggling for gainful employment, and really believing that a better understanding between China and the US could have incalcuably huge benefits for all concerned, even some random kid from the Midwest can find that China, for him and for so many others, just fits.

Reboot

Problem: Blogger is not writing.

There were two problems with starting a translation blog. The first was that I spent a good portion of each workday translating, and could not share the results of my translations due to business confidentiality, etc...all of which left me precious little mental capital to spend when I went home to my horribly slow and undependable ADSL connection. Now I have moved to a much more interesting part of Beijing and have slightly better internet, so I will renew my efforts to write on a daily basis. Sometimes it will involve translating, sometimes it won't.

I'm actually on vacation at the moment back in the States, come back to see one of my oldest friends get married, another get engaged, several birthdays in the family, and several friends who may soon be deployed to the Middle East. Life moves fast.

So, let's get this started.

Quick Hits

Michael Zhao at Forbes talks about TopFlash Media, a company I have come to know well for their ads in the No. 1 Subway here in Beijing. The ads flash past on the walls of the tunnel when the train reaches its top speed between stations, usually for 15-20 seconds. I've seen ads for cell phones, an online gambling site, et al - they aren't hard on the eyes, and the quality of the images is quite good, although it seems to cater more to a computer/cartoony style than photorealistic.

The Chinese government has been historically reluctant to adopt transparent government, but they occasionally can open up a little, though they may have been overwhelmed when they received more than 200,000 comments on a proposed labor law. This far exceeds the average number of comments for a draft law, although it is not unprecedented - the American effort to regulate big Tobacco garnered something in the millions. However, for a government not used to dealing with it, such a high volume of input could discourage transparency in the future. My money is on China continuing to be "selectively transparent," but drafting additional regulations to control the comment process to the point where it may be meaningless.

Tainted pet foot certainly tugs at the heartstrings, but it hardly compares to the complete failure of supervisory regulation that allowed a poisonous solvent to worm its way into Panamanian medicines and kill more than 100 people.

And lastly, one of the best short op-eds I've read in translation, about the passive-aggressiveness that pervades modern China, and modern society in general (I think the author is fooling himself that we're THAT much more civically responsible...) Since I'm a foreigner, I have a good excuse not to speak up, and in fact, a good reason not to, most of the time. It's not worth creating an incident when I see someone throw trash on the ground (although I am absolutley merciless to my Chinese friends), or someone just being unspeakably rude, cutting in line, etc...and I know I'm not experiencing some xenophobic backlash, because I quite often hear the other Chinese in line curse softly under their breath. But it's different when it's your own country and your own people.

That's all for now. There will be some original content at some point.

Explanatory

The old blog is dead. Long live the new blog.

Generally you're going to find two types of articles on here: The first and most common ones will be related to the Chinese economy, stock market, government, etc. - these are the bread and butter of my translation efforts. However, the more ambitious and enjoyable category will be drawn from various short stories, famous novels, and popular culture. There are some things I just want to work on for my own edification (such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms) which have already been done, but I'll also make a concerted effort to offer up some really unusual translations and some of the eight million news stories I read daily. I think I might be addicted to information.

I'm not an expert, and I am a perfectionist, so the posting frequency may be quite...low. But I'd rather post a few good things than a lot of middling ones.

As for me, I'm just another foreigner in China, looking into my future and China's and trying to see the intersections and divergences. More about me later.

First

This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without me, my blog is useless.

You know what else will make this blog useless? Not having Chinese fonts enabled.

• Go to the VIEW menu (in Firefox)
• Select CHARACTER ENCODING
• Auto-Detect Chinese

That should work, but if not, manually select Simplified Chinese - GBK and GB2312, I use those and never have a problem seeing any simplified characters.