China 'lacks cultural masterminds'

Yan Lili's company Transn has provided services for the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo, and did the subtitles for various TV shows and films, including super popular Chinese food-and-culture documentary "A Bite of China," which was watched by some 80 million audiences in 137 countries. [File Photo]

One executive from a translation innovation company told China.org.cn in an exclusive interview that there are currently very few cultural masterminds in terms of promoting Chinese essence overseas.

Yan Lili, vice manager of Transn, a new-type Internet & IT-based language service supplier as well as a language service provider, said Chinese cultural promoters should do their homework before heading out to the world.

"I'm not a cultural expert, but from the information I personally analyze and know, the difficulties, on the macroscopic side, stem from a lack of general planning, " she said, "Many departments and institutions are doing things their own way, instead of joining forces."

She continued, "For the execution part, we lack the masterminds for cultural communication and promotion, and those experts with international vision. If we want our culture to be truly accepted by the world, we have to study and research first, and present what will be that which people from other cultures would love to see. Solemn and blunt promotion is easily dismissed. "

"The best cultural promotion would be to silently step into their hearts. I think that if we can collaborate with international cultural masters, we will receive more positive results," she added.

Transn, a joint venture with the involvement of China Radio International (CRI), has become a virtual language department (VLD) and multilingual work platform for their clients. They have initiated the new service format of iLangNet globally in order to meet market demands and have more than 800 employees and manage over 30,000 freelance translators worldwide while processing over 8.5 billion words in total. The company develops many innovative language service projects and software, including the independent innovative "cloud translation service platform," which is a cloud computing solution based on secure and controllable software and hardware.

According to Yan, they have provided services for the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo, Guangzhou Asian Games and did the subtitles for various TV shows and films, including super popular Chinese food-and-culture documentary "A Bite of China," which was watched by some 80 million audiences in 137 countries.

The Advanced Seminar on Building China's Language and Translation Abilities, themed "Translation and Communication of Chinese Culture," was held from May 16 to 19 at Beijing Language and Culture University and was organized by China's Ministry of Culture, the Translators Association of China (TAC) and the university itself. During the seminar, Yan introduced a system to recognize the human voices and sounds and swiftly create a transcript and time axis on paper.

"This system is developed by us and several famous international institutions, she said, "Its accuracy can be more than 98 percent in a simple setting without other noise." To ensure the 100 percent accuracy, they will also manually check the transcripts. Nevertheless, this system is "a huge innovation and improvement," she added, "For the translation industry, it is a new way to improve service and depth; and for the TV industry, it can help localize and internationalize any program as fast as possible."

Yan thought that China is in urgent need for a good business model. "Nowadays, many translation companies will have to compete with each other by lowering their prices in order to survive. As they also have to control the costs, the translation quality also declines," she said. She also pointed out that the relevant government departments don't know much about the translation industry and have not raised the fees and benefits for professionals in years. The industry itself lacks regulations, self-promotion and brand building, and underestimates the value of translation, allowing talent to slip away.

Yan Lili, vice manager of Transn, speaks at the Advanced Seminar on Building China's Language and Translation Abilities held from May 16 to 19 at Beijing Language and Culture University. [China.org.cn]

For media industry translation, she noted, some clients even went to work with freelance Internet translator groups because they wanted to lower the costs. Yet results are not good. So, she said, if you are really want to promote something and something is representing a nation's image and projects, you have to find the appropriate translation institutions and companies to ensure quality. "'The Times of a Good Son's Wife' and 'Jin Tailang's Happy Life' are good examples, both so popular that they were broadcast overseas in target countries as long as the translation and production qualities were ensured. "

"There are many experts on our team who often communicate with the international media," she continued, "Therefore, they are very familiar with how to present programs in an international way. They told us they will listen to local clients' suggestions and adjust the program accordingly. Prime time airing should be prioritized as it is the best way for any program to effectively stand out. "

Yan added, "As for what materials to select for overseas promotion, I think you should consider the target audience's taste and drop some content that will not cater to their pallet. Some books are good, but it may be better to be spread around the world by adapting it them as movies and TV series. The combination would be better. I suggest that everyone who is in international communication frees their mind, not limiting yourselves to certain formats and considering from local audience perspectives how to get China's best cultural products into their liking."