Thursday 31 October 2013
Wednesday 2 October 2013
A new book: Signifying the Local: Media Productions Rendered in Local Languages in Mainland China in the New Millennium (Brill, 2013). Author: Jin Liu
In Signifying the Local, Jin Liu examines contemporary cultural productions rendered in local languages and dialects (fangyan) in the fields of television, cinema, music, and literature in Mainland China. This ground-breaking interdisciplinary research provides an account of the ways in which local-language media have become a platform for the articulation of multivocal, complex, and marginal identities in post-socialist China. Viewed from the uniquely revealing perspective of local languages, the mediascape of China is no longer reducible to a
unified, homogeneous, and coherent national culture, and thus renders any monolithic account of the Chinese language, Chineseness, and China impossible.
Table of contents
In Signifying the Local, Jin Liu examines contemporary cultural productions rendered in local languages and dialects (fangyan) in the fields of television, cinema, music, and literature in Mainland China. This ground-breaking interdisciplinary research provides an account of the ways in which local-language media have become a platform for the articulation of multivocal, complex, and marginal identities in post-socialist China. Viewed from the uniquely revealing perspective of local languages, the mediascape of China is no longer reducible to a
unified, homogeneous, and coherent national culture, and thus renders any monolithic account of the Chinese language, Chineseness, and China impossible.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter One. A Historical Review of the Discourse of the Local in Twentieth-Century China
- Chapter Two. An Overview of Television Series Productions in the 2000s
- Chapter Three. Alternative Translation: Performativity in Dubbing Films in Local Languages
- Chapter Four. Empowering Local Community: TV News Talks Shows in Local Languages
- Chapter Five. Ambivalent Laughter: Comic Sketches in CCTV's Spring Festival Eve Gala
- Chapter Six. Popular Music and Local Youth Identity in the Age of the Internet
- Chapter Seven. The Rhetoric of Local Languages as the Marginal: Chinese Underground and Independent Films by Jia Zhangke and Others
- Chapter Eight. Multiplicity in Mainstream Studio Films in Local Languages
- Chapter Nine. The Unassimilated Voice in Recent Fiction in Local Languages
- Conclusion
Monday 30 September 2013
中英混血創作人 Mara Measor
一個女孩子，可以背負多少？中英混血創作人 Mara Measor ，背景得天獨厚，但她選擇了走自己的路，曾經背起行囊遠赴埃塞俄比亞生活一年，在當地寫了30多首歌，其後被艾美獎得獎監製 Jamie Lawrence 發掘，當上創作人後仍事事一腳踢，自彈自唱、宣傳、安排演出等都親力親為，非常用心。
她的首張專輯終於要推出了，從與她的對話中感覺到， Mara 是一個很喜歡思考，甚至很多愁善感的人。她的音樂，給人初秋微涼的感覺。「我是一個時時刻刻都能受啟發的人，看到或聽到什麼東西都可以觸動我的心靈，留下印象。所以我時刻都會帶備筆記本…… 同一時間可以有五本呢！」對她來說，樹木是引發思考的泉源。「說來可能很奇怪吧，每次我被樹木包圍時，都覺得深受啟發。樹木不斷生長、枯萎，除非每天拍下照片記錄，否則人的肉眼難以看見。每次我看見樹木都感到很平靜，覺得一切問題都會迎刃而解，只要慢慢用心做好事情，最終一定有好的收成。」....
Listen to her song "I want to love you", the lyrics are bilingual. Her PTH pronunciation of 捨棄 is slightly wrong.
Thursday 26 September 2013
Comix Homebase 動漫基地, a nice bilingual website maintained by the Arts Centre of HK, on comics and animation. Check out the reading corner!
Wednesday 18 September 2013
Some schools are teaching children how to think for themselves
Many schools, especially in the big cities, have teams that debate, in English and Chinese. Educators say the aim is to develop some of the skills they know are lacking: critical thinking, spontaneity and public speaking. Many students also believe taking part in debating as an extra-curricular activity can help with applications to universities in the West.
[Read the FULL STORY: http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586319-some-schools-are-teaching-children-how-think-themselves-house-believes]
Tuesday 17 September 2013
Aesthetic Consumerism and the Violence of Photography: What Susan Sontag Teaches Us about Visual Culture and the Social Web
By: Maria Popova
“Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted.”
Ever since its invention in 1839, the photographic image and its steady evolution have shaped our experience of reality — from chronicling our changing world and recording its diversity to helping us understand the science of emotion to anchored us to consumer culture. But despite the meteoric rise of photography from a niche curiosity to a mass medium over the past century and a half, there’s something ineffably yet indisputably different about visual culture in the digital age — something at once singular and deeply rooted at the essence of the photographic image itself.Though On Photography (public library) — the seminal collection of essays by reconstructionist Susan Sontag — was originally published in 1977, Sontag’s astute insight resonates with extraordinary timeliness today, shedding light on the psychology and social dynamics of visual culture online.
In the opening essay, “In Plato’s Cave,” Sontag contextualizes the question of how and why photographs came to grip us so powerfully:
Humankind lingers unregenerately in Plato’s cave, still reveling, its age-old habit, in mere images of the truth. But being educated by photographs is not like being educated by older, more artisanal images. For one thing, there are a great many more images around, claiming our attention. The inventory started in 1839 and since then just about everything has been photographed, or so it seems. This very insatiability of the photographing eye changes the terms of confinement in the cave, our world. In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads — as an anthology of images.[FULL article: http://www.brainpickings.org/]
Monday 16 September 2013
Student blogs for Bilingual Cyber Culture
- 1. Bilingualsmurf (by Sabrina, Enrique, Miller, Vincent, Yobi)
- 2. SWAN (by Anson, Najuka, Winnie, Samatha)
- 3. Bilingualgipsy (by Candice, Percy, Dorothy, Nicole)
- 4. Clevhne (by Vanessa, Emily, Heidi, Natalie)
- 5. The Virtual Pop Cults (by Cath, Catherine, Coco, April, Summi)
- 6. BilingualKaleidoscope (by Hedy, Marcella, Meris, Wing, Weixiang Ma)
- 7. Bilingual Explorer (by Abby, Sita, Anna, Kimmy, Ting, SY)
2 Police Officers in Anhui Witness Girl Being Killed Without Stopping It, the Police: It Wasn’t Because They Were Afraid of Dying
People’s Daily Online Bengbu, August 22 news — On the afternoon of August 18, a murder happened in Anhui Province Bengbu City Yuhui District Macheng Town: A 17-year-old female supermarket cashier was murdered after being stabbed over 10 times by the killer.
Surveillance footage during the crime showed: While the girl was being choked by the killer and stabbed to death, two police officers stood right in front of them, yet dared not to go forward to stop it. Not until the perpetrator stabbed himself and fell to the ground did the two policemen go forward to subdue him. The two policemen’s behavior was strongly and angrily condemned by the family members of the deceased.
Failing to Stop Murder
Three weeks ago, surveillance footage of a supermarket in Anhui captured two police officers failing to stop the murder of a young woman right in front of their eyes, inciting heated condemnation from Chinese netizens nationwide. Within days, the police department of these officers declared that the two officers were not derelict in their duty for failing to stop the killing….
From Sina:
The Two Policemen in Anhui Who Witnessed the Murder of a Young Girl Without Effectively Stopping It Have Been Held Accountable
People’s Daily Online, Hefei, September 11 report (Reporter Zhanglei) — This People’s Daily Online Anhui Channel reporter has gotten news from relevant departments that the two police officers previously reported by this website in “Two Bengbu Police Officers Witness Young Girl Being Killed, Was Very Close But Failed to Step Forward Bravely” on August 21st have been held accountable. The Bengbu City Public Security Bureau has decided: Remove Song X from his position as political instructor of the Macheng Police Station, give administrative demerit, and transfer out public security organizations; Give administrative demerit to police officer Cui X, and transfer out public security organizations.
[For FULL STORY: http://www.chinasmack.com/2013/stories/police-officers-held-accountable-for-failing-to-stop-murder.html]
許嵩 (Vae Xu) 的歌《違章動物》，表達了小男孩的夢想與社會現實的距離。一個月內，這首歌在 QQ 網上有1200多萬點擊率。
這篇英文分析文章，是時代流行曲、社會評論、互聯網與翻譯功能四者關係的好例子。
Chinese Pop Song: Rule Breaking Animal 《违章动物》
Rensi from ChinaSMACK translated and explained the lyrics of a recently released pop song, ‘Rule-Breaking Animals’, written by a 27-year-old independent singer-songwriter Xu Song. The song is about the conflict between chengguan (city management officers) and street vendors and it has generated more than 12 million listen in QQ music in less than a month.
這篇英文分析文章，是時代流行曲、社會評論、互聯網與翻譯功能四者關係的好例子。
Chinese Pop Song: Rule Breaking Animal 《违章动物》
Rensi from ChinaSMACK translated and explained the lyrics of a recently released pop song, ‘Rule-Breaking Animals’, written by a 27-year-old independent singer-songwriter Xu Song. The song is about the conflict between chengguan (city management officers) and street vendors and it has generated more than 12 million listen in QQ music in less than a month.
Thursday 12 September 2013
A new example of bilingual news commentary:
A Guangzhou police officer wrote on his microblog that the national campaign against online rumors "should be abide by the law" and should not be "extended blindly". His post was removed promptly by the web censor but his message has spread nevertheless.
What's a Rumor? Judiciary Guidelines Face Scrutiny in China
With the recent escalation of arbitrary arrests and prosecutions for online “rumor mongering”, Chinese authorities are facing criticism from both the law enforcement and legal experts in China.
No legal ground for rumor crackdown
Several human rights lawyers have raised concern over the legal ground of the government's “anti-rumor” campaign, noting the harms that it could present for free expression, particularly given the lack of a definition in law for what constitutes a rumor. In an interview with Radio Free Asia, rights lawyer Sui Muqing explained that rumor is scarcely touched upon in existing law. ”The Criminal Law and the Punishments Law touch on rumors in two places, where obvious, deliberate, and direct harm has been done to society,” he said. Sui described the current campaign as the “greatest step backwards for the rule of law in China since economic reforms began in 1979.”
Chinese traffic police officer. Photo by Beijing Patrol from US. [CC-BY-2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Even communist party scholars are questioning the campaign. In an interview with Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece, Central Institute of Socialism professor Wang Zhangyang remarked,
"[A]uthorities have not yet clarified a precise definition of rumors, yet the campaign has evolved into a national movement…this has given rise to different approaches to enforcing the campaign by different local police departments.”
Worse still, Wong noted that “local police may also have quotas to meet, which further muddles the situation.”
Judicial clarification targets “viralness”
To provide legal ground for prosecuting accused rumor mongers, China's Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate issued [zh] a new judicial guideline on September 9, stating that anyone who deliberately posts defamatory lies and rumors against individuals or the government may face up to three years imprisonment if their posts are shared for more than 500 times or viewed by more than 5,000 people. Targeting the “viralness” of such messages, the guideline cuts against basic laws of online sharing.
A newly issued judicial clarification [zh] tried to modify what constitutes a harmful rumor under existing law. The following stipulations now define what qualifies as a “rumor” and address related aspects of how rumor mongering will be treated by courts:
1. [Messages that] defame individuals or groups.2. The scale of harm: A defamatory message that has been viewed 5000 times and retweeted 500 times; a message that brings psychological distress and harm; the person has a track record of spreading rumors; others.3. A message that upsets social order and national interests by inducing mass incidents [protests and demonstrations], inducing public disorder; inducing ethnic and religious conflicts; harming national image and interest; and etc.4. Individuals who have spread many rumors over one year and the cumulative views and retweets of the messages are up to 5000 and 500 [respectively].5. A message that insults or threatens other individuals and disturbs social order should be prosecuted under the charge of “provoking social disorder”.6. [Entities who earn profits] threatening individuals by spreading untrue information and message deletion service will be prosecuted with “blackmailing”.7. [Entities who earn profits] by providing message deletion services and spreading untrue information with a business scale up to RMB 50,000 yuan for individuals and RMB 150,000 for corporates, will be prosecuted under “illegal operation of business”.8. Capital, technological and administrative support to defamation, provoking social disorder, blackmailing and operating illegal business will be prosecuted as “conspiracy” to the criminal acts.9. When the criminal act of defamation, provoking social disorder, blackmailing and operating illegal business have real harm to business, inciting social violence, the sentence will be more heavy.
The spokesman for the Supreme People's Procuratorate stressed that they want the judicial guidelines to limit the “watchdog” function of social media. Publicly, it is widely believed that the measures aim to restrict freedom of expression online on a broad scale.
The guideline will take the heaviest toll for online opinion leaders, many of whom have tens of thousands of followers. Any ungrounded message post by them will automatically reach the legally defined scale of harm — 500 retweets and/or 5000 views. Responding to the new rule, social commentator Hugo satirically posted:
Retweeted 500 times and one can be convicted. This is so scary. First, I want to plead to all the big V (influential opinion leaders), please do not post any comment and retweet my posts or I will reach the 500 retweets and 5000 views at once. Second, I wonder if they have prepared enough prison cells. The subcontractors of prison service will make huge profit. Third, If you want to get someone in trouble, you just need to hire 500 people to retweet his / her message. Retweet will become an art of getting someone in jail.
Taking a satirical tack on the news, novelist Jin Manlou suggested that the campaign could have economic benefits for the country:
The economy is not good. The 500 retweets might have some economic consideration. Conservative estimation is that the policy can lead to 1% economic growth and the reason is simple: the more people get prosecuted, the more lawyers, judges, prosectors the society needs; the more people put into jail, the more prisons needed to be built, and more police officers… this can certainly enhance employment, construction and building business. A smart move.
State media, for example, have not been punished for rumor mongering — recently Chinese Central Television and Xinhua news agency wrongly reported that Istanbul had won the bid for the 2020 Olympic games, when in fact Tokyo had won. Netizens mocked the error, highlighting the state and party monopoly on the distribution of fabricated information.
While the judicial guidelines offer some clarity on the definition of “rumor”, few believe that they will change the arbitrary nature of detention and prosecution for rumor mongering in China.
Written byOiwan Lam
Wednesday 11 September 2013
The Sinocism China Newsletter
I've always found this source of China news useful, timely, and stimulating. It's a good example of bilingual internet publishing too. Students are recommended to read it regularly!
Here is a thread on "media".
Tuesday 10 September 2013
一般香港人對本地土生土長的南亞裔人群，認識膚淺，偏見纍纍。近年在平等機會、共融政策的大氣候推動下，主流社會對南亞裔人群的認識，稍微改善。Michael Chugani（褚簡寧）的故事，彷如一面鏡子，讓我們照見少數族裔如何在香港中英文化的窄縫中，脫穎而出。
從事政治記者三十多年，褚簡寧的獨家新聞戰績彪炳：回歸前中英談判破裂、鄧蓮如退休、變通以訪問克林頓和彭定康、專訪賴昌星等等，他的問題尖銳，閱人無數，他說：「做Politicians，要有sense of humor。」
網絡世代草根文化文：劉細良
對於中國互聯網的想像，大家會想到「河蟹」、「翻牆」， 但倒過來想，這些字詞的出現，實質是建基於中國的監控文化， 於是我們得出了結論︰網絡與現實，兩者不是割裂的。 那麼，中國內地新近出現的詞語︰屌絲，又是在一個怎樣的社會脈絡下產生呢？[...] 「屌絲」其實已脫離原有粗俗意義，成為內地潮語，它泛指一班活躍網絡的年輕人，他們有多少「毒男」、「宅男」性質，屬社會上弱勢一群，草根低收入，做 junk job， 唯一娛樂是上網。相對於「屌絲」草根就是「高富帥」精英，有錢，名牌大學及富二代。屌絲這名堂其實並不重要，正如「高登仔」，不過是一種稱呼，但其背後是反映內地社會分化帶來的文化矛盾，也給市場行銷帶來了一個全新概念。[...]
[全文見：http://www.books4you.com.hk/70/pages/page7.html]
Friday 6 September 2013
東南西北是我最喜歡的博客之一，主人宋以朗 Ronald Soong 是著名紅學家兼翻譯家宋淇的兒子。宋先生遊歷四海、見聞廣博，最厲害者，是翻譯奇技高超：快而準、多而精，讓讀者總能享受意想之外的旨趣。
今天看到這篇文章，宋先生談自己学语言、做翻译，以及经营网站的故事，看得我津津有味。我學英語，首先也是因為喜歡英文歌、美國肥皂劇、歐美電影。邊聽邊跟著哼，邊看邊摹仿語氣聲調，輕輕鬆鬆就和英語結下美好姻緣。
宋先生講美國法庭審案的翻譯問題，讓我想起過去在英國的經驗，甚有共鳴！
東南西北這個博客有多大影響力？連西方的重要報紙，如紐約時報、衛報、華盛頓郵報，都會參考宋先生在這裡翻譯的中國時事新聞與評論。宋先生說：
「2009年，麻省理工教授、媒体研究学者伊森·扎克曼 (Ethan Zuckerman) 在他的博客写道：“大家要知道中国网民的想法，最好希望我们能 尽快找到法子复制宋以朗。他和东南西北博客对中、英文世界的交流太重要了，以至我听说有些人，每提及大规模的中英文翻译计划时，便称之为‘分布式宋以朗问 题’(the distributed Roland Soong problem )。”近几年间，果然冒起不少翻译博客，总算在某程度上接通了东西方。」
正在上 Bilingual Cyber Culture 的同學，你能把上述原文找出來，在這裡分享嗎？
今天看到這篇文章，宋先生談自己学语言、做翻译，以及经营网站的故事，看得我津津有味。我學英語，首先也是因為喜歡英文歌、美國肥皂劇、歐美電影。邊聽邊跟著哼，邊看邊摹仿語氣聲調，輕輕鬆鬆就和英語結下美好姻緣。
宋先生講美國法庭審案的翻譯問題，讓我想起過去在英國的經驗，甚有共鳴！
東南西北這個博客有多大影響力？連西方的重要報紙，如紐約時報、衛報、華盛頓郵報，都會參考宋先生在這裡翻譯的中國時事新聞與評論。宋先生說：
「2009年，麻省理工教授、媒体研究学者伊森·扎克曼 (Ethan Zuckerman) 在他的博客写道：“大家要知道中国网民的想法，最好希望我们能 尽快找到法子复制宋以朗。他和东南西北博客对中、英文世界的交流太重要了，以至我听说有些人，每提及大规模的中英文翻译计划时，便称之为‘分布式宋以朗问 题’(the distributed Roland Soong problem )。”近几年间，果然冒起不少翻译博客，总算在某程度上接通了东西方。」
正在上 Bilingual Cyber Culture 的同學，你能把上述原文找出來，在這裡分享嗎？
Wednesday 4 September 2013
Hello! Welcome to this blog.
I started this place as a sharing space with my students on the course Bilingual Cyber Culture at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
If language is power, then those who command more than one language also command particular privileges – especially in an age of information and globalization. I'd like to explore the magnificent cyber world with my students, paying special attention to the increasingly prominent existence of bilingual web publishing and blogging. Specifically, the students will learn how bilingual presentations in Chinese and English facilitate individuals and communities to create social impact.
Those engaged in bilingual cyber publication may be called “cultural translators”, as they appropriate and re-contextualize information, news and opinions across linguistic and cultural borders. By examining exemplary bilingual websites and blogs, we become usefully aware of the complex dynamics between language use and identity (race, gender, class etc.), social networking, (trans-)nationalism, activism, transcultural fusion and global economy in the 21st century.
I started this place as a sharing space with my students on the course Bilingual Cyber Culture at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
If language is power, then those who command more than one language also command particular privileges – especially in an age of information and globalization. I'd like to explore the magnificent cyber world with my students, paying special attention to the increasingly prominent existence of bilingual web publishing and blogging. Specifically, the students will learn how bilingual presentations in Chinese and English facilitate individuals and communities to create social impact.
Those engaged in bilingual cyber publication may be called “cultural translators”, as they appropriate and re-contextualize information, news and opinions across linguistic and cultural borders. By examining exemplary bilingual websites and blogs, we become usefully aware of the complex dynamics between language use and identity (race, gender, class etc.), social networking, (trans-)nationalism, activism, transcultural fusion and global economy in the 21st century.
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