Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

a disgusting New Zealand Chinese news website

There is a Chinese version of this post in Bear's Blog China>>>>>>>
这篇日志在Bear's Blog China有中文版本>>>>>>>

Most Chinese media in New Zealand don't have much 'real journalism'. You don't expect to see first hand news except news happened inside the Chinese community. For news across the country what most Chinese media do is to translate English version into Chinese version.

But sadly most time you cannot expect  'word to word' translations because opinions and the way those media view the news story were added (and I believe that’s not very consistent with usual copyright agreements)Here is just a case about what kind of things a Chinese media is really thinking about:

Original news: Korean bus crash victim recovering, plans to stay in NZ - New Zealand Herald

A young Korean tourist who lost her arm in a bus crash last month plans to stay in New Zealand permanently.

Kuy-ri Suk, 19, was one of three people whose right arms were amputated after the bus carrying 15 tourists rolled on State Highway 1 near Tokoroa, on February 10...

...Her family had decided to establish a new home in Hamilton, in order to support her through the rehabilitation process...

When translated into Chinese, the title goes like this:

韩国少女看来只能用右手臂换取留身份在新西兰 (Korean girl gave up her right arm as the only way to get Premanent Residency in New Zealand.) - skykiwi.com

I sent a email immediately to protest this title , and there were also number of comments at end of the news page questioning whether the editor still 'has any humanity left'.

But what really disgusted me is the reply made by seems another editor of the site:

"...对于你提到的文章，事实是个无奈的选择，如果你是成年人，我相信你应该理解这个标题的意思。如果告诉你 用钱，或者其他来换取任何人的手臂，我相信这个事情很难办到。因为谁也不会去答应这样的交换，可是残酷的事实已经发生了，有点补偿难道你不需要吗？..."

Translation:

"...about the news item you have questioned, if you are an adult, you should understand the real meaning of the title. It is a fact that not many people will give up his right arm in exchange for money and other things. However as the incident happened already, don't you think there should be some forms of compensation?..."

"……我们也是本着还原新闻本质的观点出发，尽量想让大家去看到事件的真相。另外，good news is not a news。这就是我们的想法，对于你的批评我们会尽力改正，同时在看到你的这封信后，我已经及时更改了相应的题目。……"

Translation:

"... We were acted the way that restores the true stories behind the news in order to let our readers to see them. And we also think that "Good news is not a news". However, according to your complaint, we have changed the problem title immediately..."

That's it, no apologies at all. However the editor changed the title and also deleted all the comments that were questioning his humanity.

I have no interest to talk about his customer service style. It's for you to judge a customer service person that replies something like "if you are an adult you should understand the real meaning of the title" to an experienced Chinese writer and currently a Chinese columnist.

But what really amused me is that they don't even truly understand what they have done, or just acted like they don't know any thing about it. I believe any normal person would not reply something like "... We were acted the way that restores the true stories behind the news..." when dealing issues of this kind. So there are only two possibilities left: this interpreter/editor is either speaker of Martian language, or he really does not have any humanity left...

Skykiwi.com is one of the most famous Chinese news website in New Zealand. Mainstream media such as New Zealand Herald reference its Chinese community news frequently. I am hugely disappointed about the way skykiwi.com has acted and considering to make a formal complaint to related authority and boycott this website.

North Korea nuclear test

North Korea

I don't know whether countries like Iraq and Iran are axis of evil or not, but as a Chinese who konws more about asian politics, I know North Korea is.

Its dictatorship isn't a threat before as the people who suffer from that are most likely to be North Korean, and sadly rest of world can, and did live with it.

But things are now different, a dictatorship with nuclear weapon is nothing more than very very dangerous. In the last few years, the North Korea dictatorship actually kidnapped surrounding countries particularly China as hostages to fulfil its greedy needs, from food aid to endless economic supports that keeps the country running.

This news is not the saddest to me yet. The saddest thing I have seen is that most Chinese netizens are showing their happiness and 'respect' to a country that is dare to confront U.S.

Those nationalists have long history theory that puts N. Korea as a barrier between China and a possible enemy (most time this enemy is Japan, or America),  therefore they "have to" "keep" North Korea "red".

Apart from keep hating Japan and America, those people cannot see that China has the greatest number of surrounding countries that have nuclear weapons: Russia, Pakistan, India and now adding North Korea, and most of those countries have a history of occupy Chinese land (Russia), or a current occupation (India, south Tibet), and now adding a new one that always kidnap Chinese as hostages to threat other countries.

But sadly, the government is just keep fuelling the hate to America and people don't see how dangerous this neighbouring country is. If a war broke out in North Korea and a nuclear weapon is used, the whole northeastern China is possible to under the nuclear radiation.

If that is not enough, what will happen if there is a war broke out between N Korea and China? This is possible if you didn't forget about similar things happened from Vietnam.

　

Steve Irwin (1962-2006)

Steve Irwin (1962-2006) Source under CC by 2.0

The news about death of Steve Irwin comes to many people as 'shock' news yesterday. Both sides of Tasman, people may not know about the name 'Steven Irwin' but they must heard the name 'The Crocodile Hunter'.

He was died as a result of stingray attack around 11am local time yesterday(Monday), while doing what he loved, filming a documentary about dangerous sea creatures.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said "quite shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death", and the Queensland Premier offered a state funeral to his family. Also many people online are putting the emoticon "(tu)" in their name to commemorate this 'Great Australian'

Across the Tasman, Some people regarded Steve Irwin as one of few Aussie personalities that both Aussies and Kiwis loved.

And I was just one of the many people that are inspired by his documentaries Like "The Crocodile Hunter" and "The Croco. Files". He brought us laugh, knowledge, and a great wildlife experience for people who can't stay wild as much as he did.

It's so sad to know that we won't see any new works from him anymore. To show my respect, along with other Wikipedians, we have started the Chinese version article of Steve Irwin yesterday.

Jihad or Terrorism

London Heathrow Airport (source: Wikimedia)

We all know what was happened this Friday. If the British police move a little bit slower there may just have another 9/11 happened, but fortunately the disaster did not happen.

Number of terrorists was planning to hijack planes from London to USA this Friday. They were planning to detonate liquid explosives on airliners so to create another mass murder, if they succeed, more than an thousand people would be vanished now.

High airport security measures were put in place at all British and American airports, including a ban on all non-essential hand luggage. Security was also increased at many airports around the world, with a large number of flights into the UK being cancelled.

Same with last time London bombing, all suspects are British born.

I don't know much about the history of Middle East, Islam, or evil America. But I know my viewpoint of politics is very simple: Killing people is bad, killing civilians is even worse and killing children is evil.

We may think those sort of things can be classified as 'terrorist attack' but the people who actually conducted these, was thinking about Jihad. People are always trying to justify their killings, "for revenge" or simply just the "guidance of some sort of god". But there is one thing they didn't realise: if their god is the only mighty one, so why not let the gods fight and we live together peacefully?

Most Chinese people discuss politics usually would do one thing first, classify people into two groups, either "anti-America" or "pro-America". I agree that Mr. Bush calling those terrorists 'fascists' and this political viewpoint could put you in danger of being labeled as 'traitors' or 'American dog'.

But that's not because I'm "pro-America". What I saw is those 'jihads' with help of their 'god' are deliberately targeting civilians and children to expect to scare off the 'evil bush'.

Also, as I mentioned all the killings, include the 'justice' ones cannot be justified, no matter who started first or who kill the most.