Culture> Film and TV

Found in translation

By Liu Wei ( China Daily ) Updated: 2014-01-09 07:10:06

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The cultural differences can work as punch lines if smartly handled, but they also cause the most headaches for these volunteers.

Jin Bo, a university teacher in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, once shared a video about a Chinese school hit by fire. In the video a student tried to escape but failed and died. One of the sentences in the show included the phrase, "Chinese fire drill", which refers to confusion and chaos. He wanted to explain the slang, but it was impossible to include the long explanation in the subtitle, so he had to write an independent tweet to explain it.

"Something will be lost in translation - that's for sure," he says. "Behind the short clips is a vast amount of information about culture, history, news and traditions of the English-speaking countries. You need to update your knowledge all the time."

Most of the translators were keen English-language students in school, and are now maintaining their passion by reading widely.

Jin enjoys the Huffington Post, Fox News and tabloids from the UK, while Guan is a regular viewer of NBC, CNN and Fox, because "you can't only watch news from liberal media". He also listens to radio programs on the way to work and subscribes to the Economist and Time magazine's electronic editions.

The most popular clips are ones about China. A recent example is Jimmy Kimmel's segment on a building in construction in Beijing, whose exterior resembles the male sexual organ.

Some of their weibo content has even set the agenda for Chinese media. Kimmel's video about the building was so popular on the Internet that the architect had to explain his design in newspapers.

In 2012, Gu shared a clip of the US talk show host Conan O'Brien complaining that Chinese comedian Da Peng copied the opening sequences of his show. The news was soon disseminated on newspapers and television programs in China. Da Peng apologized to O'Brien.

Li Wending hopes he can one day turn his hobby into a real job. He was thrilled to learn that Sohu.com has bought the official rights to release Saturday Night Live, the popular US variety show. The website is also cooperating with some volunteer translators.

Guan says sharing English-language content is more than just a bit of fun.

"The fact we can share the content on the Internet and it is popular already shows some progress," he says. "Also, I find the viewers of our weibo are smart and full of curiosity. Most of them are well educated and would like to see the world from an objective and balanced perspective."