Two weeks ago I worked for Transmit China program, a conference for people in Music industry to exchange ideas and meet each other.
In the roundtable discussion, I learned a new word –sell out. “sell out” doesn’t mean something is sold outJ It means someone is compromising their integrity, morality or principle in exchange for money or success. This word is frequently heard in musical community, where it implies an artist (艺人) has compromised their artistic integrity to game fame or radio airplay or a record contract. I would like to translate it into “(为了出名/迎合商业化而)出卖艺术”.
Interestingly, people from different cultural background found the differences of Chinese fans and western fans’ perception towards artists endorsing big brands. One speaker said in Asia he saw some famous American female actresses or singers appeared in the commercials for some cosmetic brands. But those actresses don’t do this in USA because if they do so, their fans may call them “sell out” and they might lose many fans by being spokesperson for big brands.
However, Chinese fans generally speaking don’t mind their favorite artist endorsing big brands. In contrast, pop starts may become even more popular if they become spokesperson for big brands because their fans think those stars are very good because they are recognized and selected by those big brands. It’s like big brands endorsing artists.
Very interesting finding, isn’t it? What’s your take?
Watched Joe Wong’s jokes online just now. It’s really hard for Chinese people to understand his jokes cause we don’t have the cultural backgroud to appreciate those jokes. But anyway it’s a good chance to learn more about American culture, politics and history, like Row VS Wade, the first amendment, American president and vice president doing the same work, seeing Russai from my backyard, etc.
I found an english script for his show and paste it here. If you are a Chinese, try listen to his show first and then read the English script. And then read those annotations and even google some words. That’s what I did just now to figure out why Americans laughed so loudly while I was at loss:-)
English script:
Good evening everyone! My name is Joe Wong, but, to most people, I am know as “Who?” Which is actualy my mother’s maiden name, and the answer to my credit card security question.
But, joking aside, I just want to reasure everybody that I am invited here tonight[注1]. I grew up in China, who wouldn’t? [注2] And my childhood memories are totally ruined by my childhood. When I was in the elementary school, as part of the curriculum, I had to work in a rice paddy right next to a quarry where they used explosives to break rocks, and that is where I learned that light travels faster than sound, which is almost as slow as a flying rock. My dad is a grumpy guy, but, occasionally, he tried to cheer me up with jokes, but he didn’t do it right.When I was seven, he said to me one day:”Hey, son. Why is tofu better than centralized socialist economy?” So, 5 minutes later I said:” Why?” He said: “because I said so!” I came to the United States when I was 24 to study at Rice University in Texas,(clapping, cheers) that wasn’t a joke (laughter) until now. I was driving this used car with a lot of pumper stickers that impossible to peel off, and one of them said “If you don’t speak English, go home!” And I didn’t notice it for two years. Like many immigrants, we want our son to be the president of this country and we are trying to make him bilingual, you know, Chinese at home and English in the public. Which is really tough to do, because many times, I had to say to him in public:”Hey, listen, if you don’t speak English, go home!” He would say to my:”Hey, dad? why do I have to learn two languages?” I said:” Son, once you become the president of the United States, you are going to sign legislature bills in English, and talk to the debt collectors in Chinese.”When I graduated from Rice University, I decided to stay in the United States, because in China, I can’t do the thing I do best here—being an ethnic. And in order for me to become a US citizen, I had to take American history lessons where they asked questions like:”Who is Benjamin Franklin?[注3]” we were like”ah, the reason our conveninent store gets robbed?” “what’s the second ammendment (of the Constitution)?[注4]” we were like “ah, the reason our conveninent store gets robbed?” “what is Roe vs. Wade?[注5]” we were like “ah, two ways coming to the Unites States?” Later on, I learned so much about American history that I started to habour white guilt. And in America, they said that all men are created equal. But, after birth, it is kind of depending on the parents’ income, their education and health care. I read in the “Men’s health” megazine that President Obama, everyweek, has two cardio days and four weight lifting days. You see, I don’t have to exercise, because I have health insurance. I live in Massachussette now, where we have universal health care,then we elected Scott Brown, talk about mixed messages[注6]. I think there is a movie about him, it is called “Kill Bill”.
I am honored to meet vice president Joe Biden here tonight, I actually read your autobiography, and today I see you, I think the book is much better. They should guest cast Brad Pitt, you know, or even Angelina Jolie.
To be hornest, I was really honored to be here tonight, I prepared for months for tonight’s show,and I showed the White House my jokes about President Obama, and that is when he decided not to come, and he started to talk about immigration reforms. Take that, Steven Colbert! [注7]
And President Obama has always been accused of being too soft. But he was conducting two wars, and they still gave him the Nobel Peace prize, and he accepted it. You can’t be more bad ass than that. Well, actually, I am thinking the only way to be more bad ass than that is if you take the Nobel peace prize money and give it to the military.
We have many distinguished journalists here tonight, whom might (be) considered my peers, because I used to write for the campus newspaper. I think journlism is the last refuge for pons, only on the newspaper can you say things like ” I was born in the year of horse, that is why I am a naysayer.” My point exactly.
And tonight is my first time to be on C-SPAN,which is a channel I obviously always watched when I couldn’t stand the sensisionalism and the demogogue of PBS and QVC.[注8] If I still could not fall asleep after watching C-SPAN, there is C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3. Thank you very much.
So, I became a US citizen in 2008, which I am really happy about, thank you very much. America #1, that’s true, ’cause we won the world series[注9] every year.After becoming a US citizen, I immediatly registered to vote for Obama and Biden, you are welcome. You had me at “Yes! We can!” That was their slogan.
So, after getting Obama and Bidon elected, I felt this power trip, and I started to think that maybe I should run for president myself. Well, I have to take a step back and explain a little bit because I have always been a moraless and pathemestic guy. I felt life is kind of like peeing in the snow in the dark winter night, you probably made a difference, but it is really hard to tell. But, now, we have a president, who is half white and half black, it just gives me a lot of hope, because I am half not black and half not white, two negatives make a positive.
You maybe saying:” Hey, what would be you campiane slogan?” You see, I spent 10 years in the past decade, oh, you too? Okey,So I understand that American people are suffering, so my campaine slogan would be:” HU(Who) cares”. If elected, I would make same sex not only legal, but required,that would get me the youth vote.
You see that I am married now, but I used to be really scared about marriage. I was like:”Wow! 50% of all marriages end up lasting forever!” And, I will eliminate unemployement in this country by reducing the productivity of American work force, so two people will have to do the work (of) one. Just like the president and the vice president, or the Olsen twins[注10]. And despite heart disease and cancer, most of American die of natually causes, so if elected, I will find a cure for natual causes.You seem to like that one. But, you won’t be covered by Health insurance though, because of pre-existing conditions. And I have a quick solution for global warming, I will switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius. It was 100 degrees and now it is 40. You are very welcome. And I am great with foreign policies, because I am from China and I can see Russia from my backyard.[ 注11]
I believe that unilateralism is too expensive, and open dialogue is too slow, so if elected, I will go with text messaging. I will text our allies just to say hi and text our enemies while they are driving:”OMG! you are building a nuclear weapon?” “But you are doing it wrong! LOL!”I just want to thank Radio and TV Correspondents’ dinner to have me here tonight and this is the first time that I wish my son knew what I was doing. Thank you so much and you have a very good night and thank you Elaine and Scott.
The other day I was watching an English movie with Chinese subtitles and found out an interesting word “deal breaker” was mistranslated.
The reason why I say this word “deal breaker” is interesting is because it can be used in various and totally different contexts so that it can be translated in different ways. But it’s hard to find an equivalent word in Chinese. “Deal breaker” cannot be used in the context of a merger/contract/deal between two companies, or in a relationship etc.
I found a good explanation of this word “deal breaker” online: Some aspect of a deal you make with another person (could be anything from a job offer to a relationship) that prevents you from being able to do it. A lot of people translate it into “交易破坏因素”(literally it’s correct), but in my opinion, we may use different Chinese phrases according to its context.
For example, in this movie, a middle-age female told her friends what kind of guy she wants to marry. She said: “hopefully he has some hair on his head, but you know, having no hair is not a deal breaker nowadays.” The second half of this sentence was translated into “不会失约”(won’t stand you up) , which is totally wrong. But even if it is translated into “交易破坏因素”, it sounds awkward in Chinese because in such context we don’t use this phrase “交易破坏因素”.
If I were the translator, I would have translated into “希望他头上还是长了些许头发,不过现如今秃头也不见得就没有机会” or “当然了,如今秃头也不是不可以忍受” or “不秃头也不是我找对象的一个必要条件”
Of course the above translations are not perfect. I feel they are kind of wordy, but I haven’t figured out a simple phrase to match “deal breaker” in this context.
Another context:
After looking at this job offer, I could tolerate the lousy shifts, poor pay and even the job being not great. Having to put up with a two hour drive to and from work every day? Sorry but that’s the deal breaker.
My translation: 看了那份工作合同, 换班、薪水不高、工作本身也不咋地，这些我都还能忍。但是每天上下班都要开两个小时的车？ 对不起，那算了吧。/对不起，这我实在无法接受只能拒绝那份工作。
If you have better translation for this word, please kindly let me know. Thanks!
Wow I just received some photos taken by Mathias, a professional photographer, who I met in Hennessy’s new product launching event last month. I was the interpreter for the media interview with Hennessy’s CEO and Mathias was their photographer.
After I opened the attachment and was amazed by the quality of the photos. Look great! Actually that was my first time that I met him and I was bold enough to ask him email me the photos with me inside:-) I know it must take him a long time to pick out those photos with me inside through thousands of photos he took that day. Not even to mention the time he spent on editing.
Here come the photos! Millions of thanks to Mathias! I will definitely recommend him to anyone who wants to hire a photographer!
I was in Hong Kong airport last Wednesday evening. I asked a security guy in Mandarin : “Dian Ti Zai Na 电梯在哪?” ( I wanted to know where the lift is.) I followed his instruction and reached an escalator. I thought maybe his mandarin is not good enough and misunderstood me. After I found the lift, I was surprised to see it has a different Chinese translation than the one we are using in mainland China–升降机. The literal meaning of 升降机 is a machine going up and down, very vivid description for a lift:-) Then I realized that the misunderstanding resulted from the different translations.
HK people use “电梯 dian ti” as the translation for an escalator. The literal meaning of “电梯” is electrical stairs. While mainland people use “电梯” as the translation for a lift, and “自动扶梯 zi dong fu ti” as the translation for an escalator. Literal meaning of “自动扶梯” is automatic stairs with arm rail.
After a second thought, I think HK’s translations are more vivid and the difference between a lift and an escalator is shown in the translation. Lift: 升降机— a machine going up and down; escalator–电梯 electrical stairs.
In mainland China, we use 梯 to refer to both a lift and an escalator, but actually a lift doesn’t have stairs.
But anyway we are used to the translations we are using. But if you are in HK, be aware of the different translations otherwise you may get to the wrong place just like me:-)
Went to the States for two weeks in August and had a lot of good experiences:-)
I was very much impressed by Americans’ willingness to help others. A simple example is: wherever my friends and I went, there were passers-by who would come up to me and ask: “Do you want me to take a photo for you all”. We were taking photos for each other on the street or in front of anything we liked. There’s always someone who would come to offer this small but warm help. I would give me camera to that person and posed happily with my friends in front of the camera.
In China, I never did this to a stranger, neither the most Chinese people. If anybody approaches me to ask me to take a photo for their group, I will be more than glad to help. But I never actively offered that help. I believe most Chinese are like me.
I couldn’t help thinking what caused the difference. I guess it’s because of the differences of our characters. We Chinese are more introverted and Americans are extroverted. That’s why we feel like being asked to help. It’s not because we are not willing to do so, but because we are not used to actively speaking to strangers. On the contrary, Americans generally speaking are more extroverted. They are comfortable at interacting with people they don’t know.
I do like the American approach and decide to give it a try in China to see other people’s reaction. But if you are an American in China and haven’t met any Chinese who you don’t know actively offering help, please don’t blame them. Just ask them to help. Then you will find that Chinese people are actually very kind-hearted too.
Last Sunday on the flight from BJ back to SH, I chatted with an indian girl sitting beside me. Then a male westerner passed by our seat and then he stopped and looked at me :” You speak very good british English. Did you study in London before? “ Though I didn’t think my English was as excellent as he said, I was thrilled to hear such a good compliment:-) Then I thanked him for his nice words.
You know what, I was happy for the whole evening. This is the magic of compliment. He made my day, though we don’t know each other! So why not start to compliment others, of course sincerely:-)? Then I can make other people happy too by just saying a few words, which cost nothing!
Super busy recently. Flew to 4 different cities within two weeks! That’s why no update here:-(
Just found out an interesting thing—the BIG benefit of arriving at airport early. I arrived at the airport around 2.5 hours earlier than the flight twice—once from Zhengzhou to SH and once from BJ to SH. You know what, I was able to catch the delayed flight which should have been taken off two hours before. And then I arrived at home on time:-)
So in this rainstorm season, arrive at the airport early to ensure you can arrive at the destination on time:-)
I listened to Tom’s (a life coach) workshop last week. I was struck by one of his sentences—reality is what you believe.
He asked the audience to do a simple but valuable excercise: write down all the current limiting beliefs in the left side of a piece of paper and then thought about how to convert those limiting beliefs into new beliefs.
For example, one limiting belief is: it’s hard to work for interest and at the same time make a lot of money. This belief limits us and just like the self-fulfilling prophecy, what we are doing is to prove this belief is true.
Then we need to change to a new belief—It’s easy to work for interest and at the same time make a lot of money. Keep believing it and you will try your best to realize it.
Know what to do next? List down all the limiting beliefs and start to change to new beliefs. Keep believing and create your reality!
Was MC for Unilver U2K2 global team banquet on Tuesday night. I didn’t know the theme of their party until I arrived at the venue—we are together. I happened to learned the Chinese sign languange of a song “We Are Together” several days ago so that I decided to teach all the audience how to use Chinese sign language to say we are together.
The interaction at the beginning went very well! They stood up and followed my gestures. I immediately grabbed their attention by involving all of them. I said that they can greet each other by doing this sign language tomorrow morning. I didn’t expect that they burst into laughters.
It’s always good to learn some new things, which may pay off in the future:-)
BTW, the banquet venue is very nice—the retaurant is at the third floor of Art Lab inside People’s Square park. The interior decoration is artistic, so is the toilet! The balcony looks great!
