Slaying Chinglish

Andrew Jacobs writes in the New York Times about the confusion caused in China by street signs and other public messages for non-Chinese speakers. The translation is often done using an automatic program or by someone without knowledge of English idioms. The result is a ubiquity of awkward wording that does not get the message across. While translations like "fatso" or "lard bucket" for extra large clothing may be amusing, for many Chinese officials they are very embarrassing. The Shanghai Commission for Language Use has been trying to clean up these Chinese malapropisms, with a plan modeled after Beijing’s efficient fixing of English signs for the 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, the Shanghai Commission’s original due date, the beginning of the Shanghai Expo, has already come and passed. Wang Xioming, an English scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was spurred to action by the laughter of her foreign colleagues. Zhao Huimin says that translation errors undermine the intended utility of signs. Regardless of the reasons of esteemed officials, lovers of "Chinglish" are upset at the future changes. Oliver Lutz Radtke, who is actually pursuing a doctoral degree in Chinglish at the University of Heidelberg, says that without such malapropisms, a "window into the Chinese mind" would be lost. Jeffery Yao, although he himself is following government directives to properly translate signs, offers the custom of anthropomorphizing nature in park signs, as an indicator of Chinese "expressive" translation. An example of this would be “The Little Grass Is Sleeping. Please Don’t Disturb It” or “Don’t Hurt Me. I Am Afraid of Pain" instead of the Western “Keep Off the Grass."

This reflects China's growing international interactions and the subsequent effect of globalization on China's cultural landscape. It also reveals a slight cultural cleavage between traditionalism and Westernization. This is important because it is a sign of growing foreign investment in China; such growing capitalism may also potentially help to liberalize politics in the future. Nevertheless, the article did indirectly mention China's still strict political culture when it said that businesses do not dare to ignore the government’s suggested translation improvements.

View more pictures of Chinese-to-English malapropisms.

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(Photos from the NYT)

Swinging activity spurs controversy over privacy in the Chinese home

As reported by a May 20th New York Times article, a Chinese computer science professor in Nanjing Institute of Technology has been accused of "crowd licentiousness" with a sentence of three and a half years in prison. Allegedly Ma Yaohai, 53, has participated in several activities classified under the term of "hooliganism," including partner swapping and group sex. Prosecutors have claimed that he held at least 18 orgies in his two bedroom apartment which he shares with his elderly mother. Ma along with 21 other swingers were arrested and prosecuted, but he was the only swinger who spoke out against the charges, which he will contest later in court, claiming that the accusations are his own private concern: "How can I disturb social order? What occurs in my house is a private matter." Apparently, deviant sexual activity now constitutes a violation of the Chinese political ideology. Ma had set up a sex chat room for other swingers to facilitate swinging activity in China. Several bloggers have spoken out against the government's prosecution of the case due to the infringement on the sexual freedoms of Chinese citizens.

This article demonstrates comparative government concepts because of the debate over the government's lack of respect for its citizens' privacy. The role of the national government in China clearly plays a large role in the individual roles of citizens. This case also demonstrates the continued role of Confucianism in Chinese society, as citizens are expected to compose themselves with propriety. This emphasizes the traditional aspect of Chinese society that has greatly impacted how the Chinese government operates.


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Photo credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10136210.stm

A worthy use of toxic chemicals

In a recent Reuters article titled "China scientists find use for cigarette butts," the author discussed a recent use for items thought to be nothing but evil. They ended up finding "nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water."

The scientists used these nine chemicals, and "applied [them] to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes," and the pipes rusted less. They cited nicotine as being one of the chemicals that prevented corrosion. This finding is most pertinent for producers and maintainers of oil pipelines, because it could potentially save them millions of dollars in repairs.

Before this was found, the cigarette butts were doing nothing but killing fish and looking ugly. Many people have been looking for a way to recycle the previously worthless butts however they had a large amount of trouble in finding a real use.

This article relates to comparative government because China may end up improving their environment which will improve their international relations. This is also just awesome because there is finally a use for something as evil as cigarette butts. This find could also improve the world economy, by allowing oil companies to be more efficient.

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China quake activist sentenced on subversion charges

A BBC article reports that Tan Zuoren, a Chinese activist, has been sentenced to five years in jail. One of Tan's lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang, said that "all of the proceedings were linked to 4 June (1989)." Tan was officially charged with igniting "subversion" related to the governmental suppression of the pro-democracy movement of the Tiananmen Square incident. However, Tan's supporters and human rights groups -- notably Amnesty International -- say that his investigation related to the construction-related causes of the 2008 Sichuan quake is the real reason for his conviction. Among the 80,000 that died in the 2008 earthquake, many were schoolchildren killed by the collapse of several thousand school buildings. Grieving parents and allegations of corruption in the school construction led to much public support for Tan's research, a fact that Roseann Rife, of Amnesty International, likely influenced the judicial decision to not include mention of the quake in the verdict, for fear of public backlash. Wang Quinghua, Tan's wife, said that "this isn't justice" and Pu said that Tan planned to appeal. Chinese artist and fellow activist for earthquake victims, Ai Weiwei, said that he thought this would be "a very important case for China...It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan's crime was entirely one of speech, of conscience."

This case reveals a sad state for civil society in China. Like the situation of AIDS activist Wan Yanhai  who left China because of governmental pressure, this case involves undue suppression of interest groups and independent research. Yet Wan left the country as a preventive measure and was never arrested like Tan. In conducting research in the failed construction of schools, Tan was responding to public concerns, unlike the Chinese government who did not hold up promises of investigation. Chinese citizen-state relations are further compromised by the fact that Tan's original trial from last year was adjourned without a verdict, and this trial's verdict was decided upon and read out in about a mere ten minutes. A continual censorship of governmental criticism lends injury to the administration's legitimacy.

(Photo credit: Shanghaiist; BBC)

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Mass killings in schools spread in China

According to a May 13th article by the Economist, a series of attacks on Chinese elementary students has broken out after an initial attack early in March. As guns are near impossible for civilians to attain, the weapons used by the attackers are predominantly knives, which they have used to severely injure and kill several Chinese elementary school children. After the first attack, several "copy-cat" incidents have occurred across China. Chinese officials have been granted the power to kill these attackers on the spot in several provinces, and security patrols have been heightened to prevent any more attempts. The perpetrators of these attacks are said to be mentally-ill Chinese citizens. Observers have contemplated the idea that the motives of the murderers may stem from frustration with the government which they have taken out on the weak. A British medical journal reported that less than 10% of Chinese mental patients do not receive treatment. The Chinese government has been predictably tight-lipped concerning the attacks, as a measure to cover up the violence (which has occurred at a most inopportune time, due to the ongoing Shanghai World Expo) and prevent further copy-cat attempts.

These killings have presented China with a challenge in terms of national security. The government's swift response to the attacks demonstrates great efficiency of the Chinese government, which is due to the concentration of power within the Politburo and its Standing Committee. The use of knives reflects China's strict ban on gun use. The media's limited response to the attacks demonstrates the government's control on information flow (a corporatist system) and a lack of transparency in reporting events. The lack of treatment for mental patients reveals a problem within the health care system and an issue in public policy.


Photo credit: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/china.kindergarten.attack/index.html?iref=allsearch

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What's for dinner?

In a February article from Foreign Policy, Adam Miller wrote about the use of dogs as food in China.

The article starts with and anecdote from the author's trip to China, and how he followed the sound of a wounded dog to where he saw one being beaten to death. It was being beaten because it is said to preserve the flavor. As the author found the dog, he drew a camera, and attempted to photograph the action, however one of the two men with clubs began to menacingly threaten him with the club that he was using to kill the dog.

However, there are proposed laws to stop this, and the punishments range from $725 to $7,250 in fines, and 15 days in prison. The range is based on whether the crime was done by a singular abuser, or a corporation.

Reaction to the legislation is divided by socioeconomic levels, partially because as annual income increases, so does pet ownership. An increase in violence, along with an increased reaction from pet owners spurred animal-cruelty laws. Pet ownership is relatively new, however, because it was "outlawed as a bourgeois affectation during the Cultural Revolution." The animal cruelty laws are now being used as an outlet for urban rural split.

This article relates to both animal cruelty, which can be used as an indicator of overall social welfare, socioeconomic cleavages, and civil liberties. The animal cruelty is obvious, and in most areas where animals are treated in such a manner, humans don't fare much better, as shown by one of the two murderers immediate turn of the club to the author.

The socioeconomic cleavages are purely the divide between pet owners, and those who want to eat dog. The relationship to civil liberties is freedom of the press. While the author was able to publish this, it is because he was not working for a Chinese magazine. He was, however, not allowed to take pictures, and while the government wasn't the party prohibiting pictures, they also did not do anything to allow the pictures to be taken.

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AIDS Activist Leaves China After Government Pressure

“When I work in China, they can really find a target to attack. When I left, they no longer had a target.”

Wan Yanhai (CIES)

Edward Wong of the New York Times reports that, Wan Yanhai has left China for the U.S. with his family in order to better continue his work as an AIDS activist. Wan is the founder of a prominent AIDS activist group, the Aizhixing Institute (Bejjing), which had been the subject of increasing governmental pressure. Kate Krauss, Wan's friend and director of the AIDS Policy Project, said that it became "impossible for Wan Yanhai to remain in China" because of the government. The governmental pressures include scrutiny from the tax agencies. The tax officials were not local, but rather unusually, from a municipical authority. Wan's office was even investigated by the fire department, apparently to ensure the office was in line with fire safety codes. It is important to note that Wan is extremely notable in AIDS campaigning in China, and has, in fact, dealt with the government before. Aizhixing was founded in 1994, a time when AIDS was not spoken about much publicly. In 2002, Wan was detained for four weeks because of pointing his finger in the mid-'90s to the government’s negligence the cause of an HIV spread in Henan Province villages.

The inquiries on Wan are not isolated; they come at a time of increased inspection on all civil society groups -- particularly those that receive foreign investment. The vitality of grassroots organizations in an important indicator of the health of citizen-state relations. The fact that Wan had to relocate to Philadelphia in order to continue his activism is not a promising sign for the global legitimacy of the Chinese government. Also, in the last year, administrative pressure has been a method of pressure on civil society groups. For example, in July 2009, Gongmeng, a legal research organization in Beijing, was shut down and a leader detained after an investigation by tax officials.

Link to the English version of the Aizhixing site.