Editing honest-to-god Chinglish is like reading with a child's thoughts in the midst of discovering for his or herself basic information about the outside world:
"Many of us may already learn from school book that Persian culture is one of the four ancient civilizations. But do you ever know that all splendid treasures belong to one Mideast country, today called Iran. As the cradle for human being’s culture and civilization, this ancient country was known as Persia until 1935. Over its 2,500- year distinguished history, Iran did pose great impacts for our global culture either in ancient time or today’s world. The ago-old “Silk Road” made different continents far away much more closed, no matter the west or the east. It was the “Silk Road” connecting Iran and China, largely enhancing economic and trade exchanges. These two different cultures did make their first spark since the time being."
Also, Chinglish just frankly works better--and you save a lot of time editing--if you just replace all the periods with exclamation marks:
Many of us may already learn from school book that Persian culture is one of the four ancient civilizations! But do you ever know that all splendid treasures belong to one Mideast country, today called Iran?!?!?? As the cradle for human being’s culture and civilization, this ancient country was known as Persia until 1935!!!!!!! Over its 2,500- year distinguished history, Iran did pose great impacts for our global culture either in ancient time or today’s world!!! The ago-old “Silk Road” made different continents far away much more closed, no matter the west or the east!111!!!! It was the “Silk Road” connecting Iran and China, largely enhancing economic and trade exchanges!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These two different cultures did make their first spark since the time being!!#$$%$%^$#*$&)@#(%^(*&$!!@!!
Wow, I am remarkably crass.
Full-disclosure: the selection above is just a taste of a 2,000 or so word article one of our more "ambitious" staff members tried to force into the magazine at the last second, well into the final design period and well past any semblance we had of a deadline, this is in addition to numerous prior rejections of the article from a series of superiors. Undettered! as this wayward "journo-in-training" was (numerous times overstepping his/her authority to plead his/her case to our English-less boss for the article to be in the mag) with the compromise "we" finally had to agree to (and by "we" I mean those of us trying to run a damn magazine) was to drop the mini-magnum opus into a 50-word blurb in the events section.
*Wipes hands.* Problem solved! Right?
This was on Thursday, issue went to print over the weekend... Let's just say I won't be surprised if the full article is in the March issue.
Huzzah!
Friday, February 27, 2009
guillotine
Bearing in mind the "censures" let through a story with thinly veinly stabs at Official-Newspaper-Chinglish, the following were cut from the "news" section for the March issue:
U.S. Amusement Park In Beijing
Universal Studios is comin’ to town, though not exactly in the form of another big-budget, blockbuster movie. CRI is reporting that the mega movie studio is planning on building a theme park with a total investment of up to ten billion RMB (about $1.5 billion given exchange rates at the time of publication, but expect that figure to be different by the time you read this) in the soon-to-be famous-er part of Tongzhou district known as ‘Liyuan Town’ just east of Beijing. Expect to see loads of brand-new entertainment facilities, hotels, restaurants and shopping centers one would expect of a fantastically ersatz virtual wonderland; it’s been earmarked as a “key project for 2009” by Beijing’s municipal government, presumably to cash in on all the tourists yet to arrive in China. Hong Kong still has Disneyland, but now at least Beijing will have a Universal Studios!
Have Diploma, Will Travel
Although it is only the beginning of the niu year, the number of registered unemployed college graduates has already hit 1.5 million, according to CRI, reporting on sources from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Plans for a graduate training program have been put into place by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and should take effect in the next three years. The measures are part of a coordinated effort to battle growing social instability, though given the general temperament of recent college graduates, a better idea may have been to hand out free PSPs.
Skynet Goes Online in 2010
The General Administration of Press and Publication, China’s national media regulating body, has gone on record to publicly declare that by 2010, “[all] profit-making media and publishing entities will be decoupled from the government institution to be separate companies.” Allegedly, ISBN numbers, publication licenses and content will be subject to “less restrictions” according to a report filed by danwei.org. But why? The edict’s intent is predicated on the premise that a relaxation in governmental control over media will give way to an internationally-recognized Chinese press or media organization that will be a relevant force on the world stage. Whether or not the plan ultimately falls into the realm of reality is a matter for time to tell.
The Odd Couple
One is drowning in debt from five maxed-out credit cards and desperate to hold down just about any job to make payments on a house worth less that the total amount owned on the mortgage, ignoring the fact that this guy’s credit history should have prevented him getting the house in the first place… while the other makes as little as $700 a year (but saves $275 of it) working the fields, doesn’t really owe anything on the run-down, one-room shanty he lives in and is generally just as worse off as he was before. According to a recent op-ed run by Forbes.com these markedly different kinds of Average Joes are who the prospective and different economic bailout plans of America and China are specifically targeting, though it remains to be seen which one will end up more like the other in the coming years…
U.S. Amusement Park In Beijing
Universal Studios is comin’ to town, though not exactly in the form of another big-budget, blockbuster movie. CRI is reporting that the mega movie studio is planning on building a theme park with a total investment of up to ten billion RMB (about $1.5 billion given exchange rates at the time of publication, but expect that figure to be different by the time you read this) in the soon-to-be famous-er part of Tongzhou district known as ‘Liyuan Town’ just east of Beijing. Expect to see loads of brand-new entertainment facilities, hotels, restaurants and shopping centers one would expect of a fantastically ersatz virtual wonderland; it’s been earmarked as a “key project for 2009” by Beijing’s municipal government, presumably to cash in on all the tourists yet to arrive in China. Hong Kong still has Disneyland, but now at least Beijing will have a Universal Studios!
Have Diploma, Will Travel
Although it is only the beginning of the niu year, the number of registered unemployed college graduates has already hit 1.5 million, according to CRI, reporting on sources from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Plans for a graduate training program have been put into place by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and should take effect in the next three years. The measures are part of a coordinated effort to battle growing social instability, though given the general temperament of recent college graduates, a better idea may have been to hand out free PSPs.
Skynet Goes Online in 2010
The General Administration of Press and Publication, China’s national media regulating body, has gone on record to publicly declare that by 2010, “[all] profit-making media and publishing entities will be decoupled from the government institution to be separate companies.” Allegedly, ISBN numbers, publication licenses and content will be subject to “less restrictions” according to a report filed by danwei.org. But why? The edict’s intent is predicated on the premise that a relaxation in governmental control over media will give way to an internationally-recognized Chinese press or media organization that will be a relevant force on the world stage. Whether or not the plan ultimately falls into the realm of reality is a matter for time to tell.
The Odd Couple
One is drowning in debt from five maxed-out credit cards and desperate to hold down just about any job to make payments on a house worth less that the total amount owned on the mortgage, ignoring the fact that this guy’s credit history should have prevented him getting the house in the first place… while the other makes as little as $700 a year (but saves $275 of it) working the fields, doesn’t really owe anything on the run-down, one-room shanty he lives in and is generally just as worse off as he was before. According to a recent op-ed run by Forbes.com these markedly different kinds of Average Joes are who the prospective and different economic bailout plans of America and China are specifically targeting, though it remains to be seen which one will end up more like the other in the coming years…
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
jogging a tightrope
My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. -- Abraham Lincoln
A lot of people (kidding! I don't know a lot of people, let's say:) Some people have told me, or have at least implied in my general direction, that this little bizarre blog is a Bad Idea Waiting To Get Worse even though I'm pretty sure that there's a sizable group of people out there who would find a behind-the-scenes look at That's Bizarre pretty funny, if not fascinating, terrifying, pitiful and/or confusing, to say the least.
The way I figure it: I've already got all this experience writing and editing copy for an extremely rigid (yet absurdly facetious) Bigass-Bureaucracy-Beast whose whims and wishes change more frequently than the wind and for reasons usually less than obvious. The name of game in never being "caught", especially in such a linguistically unique country such as, I dunno, this one, I would assume is to game the system by never serving up what's expected of you. I had considered taking photos of the people I work with to flesh this blog out with some color, but I think I've realized, the best use of this space will be to seek out the moments of plausibility in an otherwise (here comes that word again) absurd place to work.
Another thing I've come to learn: there's always a way to write for an audience more critical than it knows what to do with itself (hint: censors).
When your job is to shit on ideas to make them more "publicly viable", or whatever the hell nonsensical philosophy there is behind such a thing, you don't feel like you've done your job until you've dumped on your work at least a little.
Word to the Wise Writer #1: Intentionally include over-the-top inflammatory portions of a piece that covers a controversial topic. The grossly "offending" parts are excised and the attention is drawn away from controversy of the piece at large. This works just as well by offering up "sacrifice" pieces to be slashed so the ones you actually want to make it through do.
One out of many faceless Golden Shield web-censors agree.ⓒ
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. -- Jonas Salk
I suppose I will be continuously refining my goal for what I intend to use this space for. We all are witness (I should hope) to absurdities everyday, though I imagine most choose to not stop, stare and ponder, laugh and giggle for so long about why such a weird thing may or may not happen, um, like I tend to do.
Like just the other day a coworker of mine -- with whom I very often verbally struggle, sometimes mightily, not just to understand his/her intentions but to simply figure out: just what exactly is your job again? You find yourself saying to him/her: "Wait... what, why?" -- this coworker of mine, his/her desk is further down the row computers we all sit at like drones everyday, and just the other day he/she walks into the office having returned from a meeting, the bathroom, sleeping outside - I have no idea - just holding in his/her arms this huge box of pens which came from...?
"Pens! Pens! I've got pens! Who's want's a pen?" He/she motions to me and gets my attention, "Hey... Pen? You need a pen?"
I was in the middle of a typing an email. Everyone looks up to figure out what exactly is going on. Pens? Wait... what, why?
Most everyone: "Um... no? I'm, uh, going to go back to typing at my, um, computer." Type type.
Me: "Hell yeah! Pen me up!"
Him/her: "Pen!"
My only regret is not seizing such an obvious opportunity for a high-five. The sad thing though: I've already misplaced it. Damn.
I'm not exactly sure why this story was worth sharing... though would it be interesting to know that our pen-friend here, this Johnny Pencilseed act of charity was likely the only productive thing he/she did all day. Maybe that's why we were all taken aback by his/her act's, um, misguided-ness?
Always be smarter than the people who hire you. -- Lena Horne
What an array of characters in this place. I'm serious, I wish I could be more specific, and in time I hope to find a strategy of doing so within this lil' walled garden to call my own.
The best thing about working somewhere where you come not to expect the unexpected, but actually come to expect some special form of entropy meets nihilism meets naked opportunism meets anarchistic power grabs meets... what's a synonym for "pointlessness"? Yeah, well, the best part about working in a place like that is learning to take it easy in situations that by necessity don't warrant a relaxed attitude.
Yeah, man. I may get to writing about how stressed I was when I first started here but whew! what a messy month that was.
Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. -- Vaclav Havel
You beginning to understand what this blog is yet? No? Well I'm not too sure I understand either. This other recent tale may not help things either:
We were working on snatching up all the right domain names, you know, to build a successful website, because that's one does when one works for Media in the 21st century (or in this case: a kind of media) when one of us suggested, "Ooh! What about dot C-N?" Yeah! Let's try it. That would be a great one to buy!
Click.
Wait... what, why?
A minute or so of confused silence. Then we laughed, pretty hard too.
http://thatsbj.cn/
We're still waiting for their webmaster to respond to our email asking if they want to sell, though if I ever do, the body of the email would likely go something like:
See: http://thatsbj.cn/
A lot of people (kidding! I don't know a lot of people, let's say:) Some people have told me, or have at least implied in my general direction, that this little bizarre blog is a Bad Idea Waiting To Get Worse even though I'm pretty sure that there's a sizable group of people out there who would find a behind-the-scenes look at That's Bizarre pretty funny, if not fascinating, terrifying, pitiful and/or confusing, to say the least.
The way I figure it: I've already got all this experience writing and editing copy for an extremely rigid (yet absurdly facetious) Bigass-Bureaucracy-Beast whose whims and wishes change more frequently than the wind and for reasons usually less than obvious. The name of game in never being "caught", especially in such a linguistically unique country such as, I dunno, this one, I would assume is to game the system by never serving up what's expected of you. I had considered taking photos of the people I work with to flesh this blog out with some color, but I think I've realized, the best use of this space will be to seek out the moments of plausibility in an otherwise (here comes that word again) absurd place to work.
Another thing I've come to learn: there's always a way to write for an audience more critical than it knows what to do with itself (hint: censors).
When your job is to shit on ideas to make them more "publicly viable", or whatever the hell nonsensical philosophy there is behind such a thing, you don't feel like you've done your job until you've dumped on your work at least a little.
Word to the Wise Writer #1: Intentionally include over-the-top inflammatory portions of a piece that covers a controversial topic. The grossly "offending" parts are excised and the attention is drawn away from controversy of the piece at large. This works just as well by offering up "sacrifice" pieces to be slashed so the ones you actually want to make it through do.
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. -- Jonas Salk
I suppose I will be continuously refining my goal for what I intend to use this space for. We all are witness (I should hope) to absurdities everyday, though I imagine most choose to not stop, stare and ponder, laugh and giggle for so long about why such a weird thing may or may not happen, um, like I tend to do.
Like just the other day a coworker of mine -- with whom I very often verbally struggle, sometimes mightily, not just to understand his/her intentions but to simply figure out: just what exactly is your job again? You find yourself saying to him/her: "Wait... what, why?" -- this coworker of mine, his/her desk is further down the row computers we all sit at like drones everyday, and just the other day he/she walks into the office having returned from a meeting, the bathroom, sleeping outside - I have no idea - just holding in his/her arms this huge box of pens which came from...?
"Pens! Pens! I've got pens! Who's want's a pen?" He/she motions to me and gets my attention, "Hey... Pen? You need a pen?"
I was in the middle of a typing an email. Everyone looks up to figure out what exactly is going on. Pens? Wait... what, why?
Most everyone: "Um... no? I'm, uh, going to go back to typing at my, um, computer." Type type.
Me: "Hell yeah! Pen me up!"
Him/her: "Pen!"
My only regret is not seizing such an obvious opportunity for a high-five. The sad thing though: I've already misplaced it. Damn.
I'm not exactly sure why this story was worth sharing... though would it be interesting to know that our pen-friend here, this Johnny Pencilseed act of charity was likely the only productive thing he/she did all day. Maybe that's why we were all taken aback by his/her act's, um, misguided-ness?
Always be smarter than the people who hire you. -- Lena Horne
What an array of characters in this place. I'm serious, I wish I could be more specific, and in time I hope to find a strategy of doing so within this lil' walled garden to call my own.
The best thing about working somewhere where you come not to expect the unexpected, but actually come to expect some special form of entropy meets nihilism meets naked opportunism meets anarchistic power grabs meets... what's a synonym for "pointlessness"? Yeah, well, the best part about working in a place like that is learning to take it easy in situations that by necessity don't warrant a relaxed attitude.
Yeah, man. I may get to writing about how stressed I was when I first started here but whew! what a messy month that was.
Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. -- Vaclav Havel
You beginning to understand what this blog is yet? No? Well I'm not too sure I understand either. This other recent tale may not help things either:
We were working on snatching up all the right domain names, you know, to build a successful website, because that's one does when one works for Media in the 21st century (or in this case: a kind of media) when one of us suggested, "Ooh! What about dot C-N?" Yeah! Let's try it. That would be a great one to buy!
Click.
Wait... what, why?
A minute or so of confused silence. Then we laughed, pretty hard too.
http://thatsbj.cn/
We're still waiting for their webmaster to respond to our email asking if they want to sell, though if I ever do, the body of the email would likely go something like:
See: http://thatsbj.cn/
Friday, February 20, 2009
hard work
Today, all ten or so of us held our scheduled-for-10am April issue planning meeting in the only conference hall that was available, which turned out to be some sort of conference/banquet studio-place that could easily accommodate hundreds of people; the big, ominous STATE GRID plaque attached to the wall overlooking the main podium area only added to the hallowed-ness of the meeting, which would (surprise) ultimately come to embody an exercise in inefficiency.
We finally got started at 10:30am and the laborious proceedings eventually wrapped up some time around 2:30pm. At one point I believe we spent close to thirty minutes (possibly more) trying to convince the three chipper representatives from the marketing team that if we were going to have blatant product tie-ins within the text of our articles, that they would need ensure that these potential clients would need to provide us with high-quality photos of their products from their PR people. I can't remember what became of the matter because I simply stopped listening after the first couple or so loops in what quickly because an exercise in circular reasoning:
Marketing: "We need photos to make design good of the article."
Editorial: "When you get in touch with the clients you've approached..."
M: "Right."
E: "Make sure you they send you their promo package, digital images, product stills..."
M: "Uh-huh."
E: "It will save us a lot of time when you're first setting up the contacts with these people, that you make sure we want to get everything they're willing to give us."
M: "So when freelancer contact designer or clothes market, they will ask for photo make design good."
E: "Well, yes if you can't get in touch with the company's PR department."
M: "We will contact fashion designing company for contact to give to freelancer write the article, they can collect the pictures."
E: "Wait, what?"
M: "We will contact company to get contact for interview, to write the introduction. We need you make sure get good image for article design."
E: "No, what we're saying is that--"
M: "Oh."
E: "... It will save time if you get their PR team in touch with us right away."
M: "Yes, we will contact PR team to get you contact to get picture. But we can't forget to have freelancer contact PR for marketing article design."
(meanwhile) Me: If I just got up and walked out, would anyone notice?
Funny thing is, a lot of other people did just that when no one was paying attention. At one point it was my turn to speak and my audience had dwindled to just a handful. Even stranger is that people would get up, disappear for up to an hour and then return later and affect a serious I'm listening to you face, as if they had never left. Next time, when we have another one of these group exercise sessions to workout our vocal chords and it's my turn to talk, I may just get up and leave mid-sentence, continuing to talk as I exit the room and enter the elevator down the hall.
You may be wondering, what could possibly make sitting through a four-hour editorial planning meeting of this caliber worthwhile? (especially considering what was actually accomplished over the four-hour period could have been done over email)
Answer: the impromptu pizza party thrown by our incapable-of-speaking-reading-and-writing-English boss! Who every thirty minutes or so would provide moot commentary (through a translator) for a discussion that would always continue on without him, but would hinge on his seemingly-alien decision-making abilities. I guess that part was cool. Burp.
We finally got started at 10:30am and the laborious proceedings eventually wrapped up some time around 2:30pm. At one point I believe we spent close to thirty minutes (possibly more) trying to convince the three chipper representatives from the marketing team that if we were going to have blatant product tie-ins within the text of our articles, that they would need ensure that these potential clients would need to provide us with high-quality photos of their products from their PR people. I can't remember what became of the matter because I simply stopped listening after the first couple or so loops in what quickly because an exercise in circular reasoning:
Marketing: "We need photos to make design good of the article."
Editorial: "When you get in touch with the clients you've approached..."
M: "Right."
E: "Make sure you they send you their promo package, digital images, product stills..."
M: "Uh-huh."
E: "It will save us a lot of time when you're first setting up the contacts with these people, that you make sure we want to get everything they're willing to give us."
M: "So when freelancer contact designer or clothes market, they will ask for photo make design good."
E: "Well, yes if you can't get in touch with the company's PR department."
M: "We will contact fashion designing company for contact to give to freelancer write the article, they can collect the pictures."
E: "Wait, what?"
M: "We will contact company to get contact for interview, to write the introduction. We need you make sure get good image for article design."
E: "No, what we're saying is that--"
M: "Oh."
E: "... It will save time if you get their PR team in touch with us right away."
M: "Yes, we will contact PR team to get you contact to get picture. But we can't forget to have freelancer contact PR for marketing article design."
(meanwhile) Me: If I just got up and walked out, would anyone notice?
Funny thing is, a lot of other people did just that when no one was paying attention. At one point it was my turn to speak and my audience had dwindled to just a handful. Even stranger is that people would get up, disappear for up to an hour and then return later and affect a serious I'm listening to you face, as if they had never left. Next time, when we have another one of these group exercise sessions to workout our vocal chords and it's my turn to talk, I may just get up and leave mid-sentence, continuing to talk as I exit the room and enter the elevator down the hall.
You may be wondering, what could possibly make sitting through a four-hour editorial planning meeting of this caliber worthwhile? (especially considering what was actually accomplished over the four-hour period could have been done over email)
Answer: the impromptu pizza party thrown by our incapable-of-speaking-reading-and-writing-English boss! Who every thirty minutes or so would provide moot commentary (through a translator) for a discussion that would always continue on without him, but would hinge on his seemingly-alien decision-making abilities. I guess that part was cool. Burp.
mea culpa: the February Cover
Pretty much everyone I've spoken to about the February issue has asked me the same question:
"What's the deal with the car?"
What's the deal, indeed. There's no explanatory title to be found and the blurred pink text found below seems to be in no way related to the picture of a driver-less Bentley parked in some grey-blue void.
To make matters even worse, you open the magazine, flip through a couple pages of posh-esque ads for V.S.O.P. cognac, flip past the colophone and letter from the managing editor to find the table of contents, and then you see this bit:
"COVER FEATURE --- Microfinance: Humble Dreams"
"Microfinancing?" you think to yourself, "What does that have to do with the picture of the luxury car?" Answer: precious, precious little, though to be honest it's much, much closer to: nothing at all.
This obvious flaw in the magazine's basic design (what goes on the cover is Media 101, right?) may seem to some like a darkly ironic comment on the economic status quo, though I can assure you that such an assessment would be giving way too much credit to the lone few responsible for the gem of an idea: "Hey... let's sell the cover to an advertiser! Yeah!" mere hours before the issue was set to be sent to the printers. But, in case you were wondering, this is not the "mea culpa" I came here to atone for in this post.
No. What we actually got wrong was simply forgetting to link the Bentley to the microfinancing article! Right? Ignoring the fact that there were some in the office with brains-not-made-of-water who fought to prevent the last-minute cover swap, our fault really lies in the fact that we just forgot to give the cover a headline to account for the contents inside the magazine! so that you, dear Reader, could look forward to the sheer reading joy waiting within! It was our to job give you sufficient enough reason to crack the cover, and we managed to blow it... but just this one time. I swear. We learn from our mistakes.
Like, here's what should have happened: OK. Management has made a decision: "This picture of a car is going to be the cover." Your first thought: "Wow, that idea is worse than sex with a wet bag of broken glass." But you're not the boss and the necessary next step is to make the best of an already weird situation and implement the decision that's been made.
OK. Time to brainstorm! Hmmm... A Car... and microfinancing... A Car?... and microfinancing... Hmmm... Solution?:
What's the deal, indeed. There's no explanatory title to be found and the blurred pink text found below seems to be in no way related to the picture of a driver-less Bentley parked in some grey-blue void.
To make matters even worse, you open the magazine, flip through a couple pages of posh-esque ads for V.S.O.P. cognac, flip past the colophone and letter from the managing editor to find the table of contents, and then you see this bit:
"Microfinancing?" you think to yourself, "What does that have to do with the picture of the luxury car?" Answer: precious, precious little, though to be honest it's much, much closer to: nothing at all.
This obvious flaw in the magazine's basic design (what goes on the cover is Media 101, right?) may seem to some like a darkly ironic comment on the economic status quo, though I can assure you that such an assessment would be giving way too much credit to the lone few responsible for the gem of an idea: "Hey... let's sell the cover to an advertiser! Yeah!" mere hours before the issue was set to be sent to the printers. But, in case you were wondering, this is not the "mea culpa" I came here to atone for in this post.
No. What we actually got wrong was simply forgetting to link the Bentley to the microfinancing article! Right? Ignoring the fact that there were some in the office with brains-not-made-of-water who fought to prevent the last-minute cover swap, our fault really lies in the fact that we just forgot to give the cover a headline to account for the contents inside the magazine! so that you, dear Reader, could look forward to the sheer reading joy waiting within! It was our to job give you sufficient enough reason to crack the cover, and we managed to blow it... but just this one time. I swear. We learn from our mistakes.
Like, here's what should have happened: OK. Management has made a decision: "This picture of a car is going to be the cover." Your first thought: "Wow, that idea is worse than sex with a wet bag of broken glass." But you're not the boss and the necessary next step is to make the best of an already weird situation and implement the decision that's been made.
OK. Time to brainstorm! Hmmm... A Car... and microfinancing... A Car?... and microfinancing... Hmmm... Solution?:
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