Bridge and Ladder Blogs

From the Global Voices Wiki, here is the explanation for a bridge blog:

Hossein Derakhshan (aka. Hoder) proposed three models for ways people can use weblogs to communicate between cultures: windows, bridges and cafés. Windows allow us to look into another culture, but not interact - an example might be a weblog of someone in another country, talking about her daily life to her friends and family. We've got a chance to look in, but we're not invited to interact.

Cafés are complex spaces where groups of people can meet to discuss in ways that they can't meet in the real world, due to geography, politics or language. Joi Ito's IRC channel is a good example of a café.

Bridges are more interactive than windows, but less complex than cafés. They're usually the project of a single blogger, or a small group of authors. Bridge bloggers write for an audience outside their everyday reality - for instance, when Ory Okolloh writes about corruption in Kenya, reaching family at home and readers at Harvard, she is bridge blogging. (And when people comment on her blog from outside Kenya, they're bridging back.)

In some sense, EastSouthWestNorth is a bridge blog between China and the English-reading world.  However, this is China and nothing is ever straightforward.  In the following, there are three posts made by different people.  The first post appeared on the Hong Kong blog Knowing N Doing.  The second post is a translation of the first post into English and appeared at Curbside @ WTO.  The third post is a translation of the second post from English into Chinese and appeared at the mainland China blog Our World.

Why is this detour necessary?  Why couldn't the Chinese just read the original blog post, which is written in Chinese?  That is because Knowing N Doing is hosted on blogspot, which is inaccessible inside China.  In this case, EastSouthWestNorth is a ladder blog -- it allowed someone to climb over the firewall.  Unless told otherwise, I lay claim to be the first person to come up with this definition.

Another interesting aspect is just how the blog post got distorted during the two translations.  With a machine translation program, this is usually the way to test how good it is: take any article, get it translated one way and then backwards, and compare it against the original.  The current machine translation programs usually deliver results that are good for a laugh.  I have included all three posts below.  Indeed, the original Chinese and the bridged Chinese posts are quite different.  Ah, but it has less to do with the translators than the fact that the original contained a lot of Hong Kong Cantonese colloquial expressions!  A mainland Chinese person actually would need some translation help with the original.

So maybe certain details were lost in the process.  But what is undeniable that there was a train of emotions and sentiments.  The first blogger would not have written the post if there was not something in the event that gave him thought.  The second blogger would not have translated it if there was not something that touched him.  And the third blogger translated it because he found something in the story too.

Oh, let me remind you that this sort of exchange would not be possible without the Internet.


(Knowing N Doing)  December 11, 2005.

家母,或恐怖份子

家母告訴我,有恐怖份子要送香港一份大禮。由於多天沒看報紙,不知道她從哪裡得知,唯有問道:「真的是恐怖份子嗎?」她說:「係呀,係恐怖份子呀。」心生疑竇,無理由,恐怖份子怎麼會來趕這趟混水。於是反問:「是恐怖份子,還是來抗議世貿的呀?」家母說:「咪係囉,總之是搞事的。」我心想,乜你轉得咁快。

世貿當前,支持者爭取一個是一個。於是我嘗試曉以大義:「人地無端端為乜搞事先,佢地都係表達不滿之麻。你諗下,人地為乜要自焚先?」「顛囉。」家母顯然理性至上。我說:「一定係好憎好不滿佢地喇,憎到命都唔要黎抗議佢地喎。世貿好陰質架。美國低價賣d米俾南韓,南韓農民好勤力咁種,但係都唔夠佢地黎呀。冇收入於是好窮好窮,生活唔到,冇晒d地,即係迫死佢地喇。」我以為家母會像平時一樣以一句「咁我就唔知喇」結束話題。怎知她說:「咁就係佢地政府唔好囉,政府唔保護佢地。所以唔係要燒自己,要燒政府。」

家母從反恐份子過渡到她口中的恐怖份子,中間不過兩三分鐘。平日她討厭一切政客,不喜歡所有違反和平安定的行為。然而,在討論的過程中,她不知不覺從和平至上,跳接到提出行駛暴力表達不滿(其中不免夾有「燒南韓好過在香港搞事」的心態)。我想,在她迷一樣的邏輯中,必定存有一些理性不能解釋的東西。我知道,如果這星期發生事故,她仍然會縐眉,但是,希望她記得自己曾有這麼一刻,覺得暴力有時也有它的合法性。


(Curbside @ WTO)

This post appears at the Chinese-language Knowing n Doing blog. The blogger named Wing describes himself as someone who "likes to sleep, read, watch movies and do nothing."

The blog post is titled "My mom, or terrorist."

Here is the translation:

My mom is telling that me that the terrorists want to send a big 'gift' to Hong Kong. I have not been reading the newspapers for a few days, so I don�t know how she got that idea. So I have to ask: "Are they really terrorists?" She says, "Yes. They are terrorists." I get suspicious. There is no reason for terrorists to get mixed up in this. So I ask again: "Are they terrorists, or are they here to protest against the WTO." My mom says, "That is it. Anyway, they are here to cause trouble." I think to myself, "Hey, you change your mind fast enough."

Since the WTO is almost here, I want to get any supporter, one at a time. So I try to preach to her: "Why do they want to create trouble? They are just expressing their discontent. You think about it. Why do they set themselves on fire?" 

"They are crazy." My mom is obviously rational above all.

I say: "They must be very hateful and dissatisfied, to the point that they give up their lives in order to protest. The WTO is very evil. The United States sell cheap rice to South Korea. The South Korean farmers work very hard to grow their own rice, but they can't compete. If they have no income, they become very very poor and they cannot make a living. They lose their land, and this is forcing them to die."

I expect that my mother would say the usual "Then I don't know about that" to conclude the conversation. Unexpectedly, she says, "In that case, their government is bad then. The government is unable to protect them. So they should not set themselves on fire. They should burn the government down."

My mother turns from an anti-terrorist into what she calls a terrorist, and the process took two to three minutes. Usually, she detests all politicians and she does not approve of any behavior that is against peace and security. Yet, during the discussion, she somehow jumps from peace-above-all to advocating using violence to express discontent (no doubt, this includes a certain attitude that "better burn South Korea down instead of creating trouble in Hong Kong"). 

I think in her mysterious logic, there must be something that cannot be explained rationally. I know that if anything should happen this week, she would still wince. But I hope that she can remember that she had one moment in which she felt that even violence is sometimes legitimate.


(我们的世界)

  我母亲告诉我恐怖主义者要给香港送一份“大礼”。我不知道她怎么会有这种想法的,因此我问她:“他们真是恐怖主义者吗?”她说:“是的,他们就是恐怖主义者。”我对此表示怀疑,恐怖主义者没有理由跑到这里来捣乱。因此我再次问她:“他们是恐怖主义者还是仅仅来这里反对WTO?”我妈妈说:“就是这样。无论如何,他们来这里是要制造麻烦。”哦,我妈妈转变的真快啊!

  因为WTO马上要在这里开了,我想为自己找到一个支持者。所以我继续试图改变我妈妈的想法:“为什么他们想要制造麻烦呢?他们只是要表达他们的不满。你仔细想想看,他们为什么要自焚呢?”

  “他们疯了。”我妈妈看来相当有道理。

  我说:“他们一定是充满憎恨和不满,因为这个缘故他们才会放弃自己的生活,来到这里抗议。WTO相当邪恶。例如美国向韩国出售廉价的大米。而那些辛苦劳作种植大米的韩国农民无法和美国人竞争。他们会失去收入,他们会变得越来越穷,他们甚至无法谋生。他们失去自己的土地,然后他们只有死路一条。”

  我希望我母亲听完这番话后会说“那样啊,我可不知道这些”。然而令我意外的是,她说:“如果是那样的话,那就是他们的政府不好。政府不能保护他们。因此他们不应该烧死自己,他们应该去烧掉政府。”

  在两三分钟之内,我的母亲就从一个反恐人士转变为一个恐怖主义者。通常来说,她憎恶一切政客,但她也不赞成任何破坏和平与安全的行为。然而,在这次讨论中,她不知怎么从一个和平主义者跳到一个支持使用暴力来表达不满的人(毫无疑问,这里面包含一种态度,即烧掉韩国政府要比在香港制造麻烦要好)。

  我在思考她那奇怪的逻辑,显然在这里面有些无法用理性解释的东西。我知道,如果在这个礼拜发生了什么事情,她一定会害怕。但是我希望她能够记得她曾经一度感觉暴力有时候是合理的。