President Joe Biden appeared to suffer a technology malfunction during a United Nations session in which the four world leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, met to discuss coronavirus vaccines, trade and relations between the nations.
As Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga finished speaking about the importance of cooperating on scientific advances and asking the United States to reduce restrictions on importation of Japanese rice, Biden took out a pen and began writing on a pad; checking his watch, before subtly motioning across the room as Suga finished.
The Delaware Democrat then grasped a small cord connecting his earpiece to the translator console.
An aide walked behind the president, who leaned in and said, "I can't get this to function at all,"
The aide appeared to fiddle with a knob on the translator console, check the earpiece itself, and walk out of frame as video of the summit concluded.
The Quad leaders: Biden, Suga, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, represent the four nations that first came together for similar talks earlier this year at the suggestion of then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – at a time when China was greatly sanctioning Australian goods.
The Quad had existed in practice since 2004 – following a catastrophic tsunami in Japan – but had never met in its latest iteration on a prime minister/president level until March, according to Australian Broadcasting.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Quad essentially went on hiatus for several years after then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd backed out of the discussions, saying it would not meet Canberra's strategic concerns.
At Friday's meeting, Modi said a Quad vaccine initiative would greatly help the Indo-Pacific region, while Biden claimed the group has been "making progress" on its initiatives in the time since their March meeting, while Morrison spoke about the Quad's shared values.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also seen accompanying Biden at the meeting.
Fox News' Kristina Biddle contributed to this report.
Have you ever read a book in translation? Inspired by the library’s French Reading and Conversation group we wanted to highlight a few titles originally published in French.
Article content
If you are interested in joining the intermediate level conversation group or the reading and discussion group, find the details at the end of this article or at peclibrary.org.
The winner of this year’s County Reads Debate, championed by Anne Preston, was Ruby Kim Thuy, which was originally written in French. The novel tells the tale of a woman, An Tinh Nguyen, born in Saigon in 1968 who immigrates to Canada as a child, with the timeline of the novel switching between her childhood and adulthood.
Kim Thuy’s recently released a new book, Em. In the midst of war, an ordinary miracle: an abandoned baby cared for by a young boy living on the streets of Saigon. The boy is Louis, the child of a long-gone American soldier. Louis calls the baby em Hồng, em meaning “little sister,” or “beloved.” Even though her cradle is nothing more than a cardboard box, em Hồng’s life holds every possibility.
The novel takes its inspiration from historical events, including Operation Babylift, which evacuated thousands of biracial orphans from Saigon in April 1975, and the remarkable growth of the nail salon industry, dominated by Vietnamese expatriates all over the world.
Another popular title, in translation, is The Perfect Nannyby Leila Slimani of Paris. When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son and daughter. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
Article content
Find these, and other titles, at any branch of the library.
FRENCH CONVERSATION CLASS & READING AND DISCUSSION GROUP
Would you like to improve your oral French? Join us for a one-hour French conversation group every Thursday at 1 p.m. Different topics are discussed each week and you receive tips on vocabulary, pronunciation and verbs that were pertinent that week in an email after each class. The conversation group has also grown into a reading and discussion group and they collaborated to write this description in French : Êtes-vous avide de la lecture? Aimeriez-vous améliorer votre compréhension du français écrit? La bibliothèque du comté de Prince Edward a un groupe de lecture et discussion en français, ouvert à tous, qui se rencontre sur Zoom une fois par semaine, les mardis de 13:00 à 14:00 heures. Nous lisons environ 70 pages par semaine et on se rencontre pour en discuter. Ce concept alternatif d’un “book club” permet une immersion plus profonde dans un livre et des amitiés se créent.
Register at peclibrary.org or call (613) 476-5962 to join one or both groups.
The third-most spoken language in America is Chinese, reaching almost 3 million people in total. Chinese has been spoken in the United States since the mid-1800s, but Chinese immigration only started to pick up after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This act removed race and nationality as criteria for immigration, making it easier for new immigrants to come to America. As a result, more than one million Chinese-speaking people immigrated from countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
(CNN)Despite its Broadway credentials, "Dear Evan Hansen" hits screens faced with an inherent tension: Can its songs and cast, led by Ben Platt reprising his Tony-winning role, overcome the uncomfortable premise and problematic protagonist? The answer is not completely, despite tweaks seemingly made specifically to try softening those edges.
Although one might think an acclaimed musical wouldn't warrant such concerns, the nature of the story -- about a misunderstanding that becomes a lie, at first kind in its intentions but increasingly cruel as it drags on -- won't be for everyone. And while there are a few beautiful songs from the team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul ("La La Land" and "The Greatest Showman"), at points that feels like modest compensation for watching this slow-motion train wreck unfold.
At its core, the story does say profound things about the nature of grief and mental health, and perhaps most pointedly how people frequently respond to tragedy in ways that make the aftermath all about them. In this case, that tendency transforms an alienated high-school kid no one paid any attention into a cause and crusade after his death.
Still, what spoke to people in the theater is diffused through the medium of film. Even with efforts to address some of those issues -- tinkering with the ending, adding new songs to enhance certain characters and excising old ones -- the focus remains squarely on Platt's Evan, who fills in gaps in his troubled life at the expense of everyone around him.
"I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone," Evan grumbles in his halting manner early on, writing letters addressed to himself as an exercise suggested by his therapist, which doesn't help in any appreciable way.
But then one of those letters is snatched away by Connor (Colton Ryan), who also signs the cast on Evan's arm. When Connor takes his own life, his parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) assume that the "Dear Evan Hansen" note they found reveals a friendship about which they didn't know.
Ben Platt in the movie adaptation of the musical 'Dear Evan Hansen.'
Evan goes along, then begins building on the lie. In what feels a bit like "The Music Man," the deception -- and self-deception -- works for a while, helping those grieving while transforming Evan from a friendless outcast into an object of sympathy at first, and eventually lifting his status. Even the seemingly perfect girl (Amandla Stenberg) admits her own self-doubts, while Evan now has an excuse to spend time with Connor's sister Zoe ("Unbelievable's" Kaitlyn Dever, maybe the best thing in the film), someone to whom he could never muster the courage to speak before.
Yet Evan's remastered life is built on a house of cards. Director Stephen Chbosky ("The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), working from playwright Steven Levenson's script, wrings as much angst as he can out of that scenario, but at a certain point the plot feels as if it's spinning its wheels.
In a year heavy on musicals, the movie also lacks many show-stopping numbers, with the exception being Platt's rendition of "You Will Be Found," Evan's school-assembly speech, an anthem that virally reaches others hurting in the way that Connor had been.
What the film can't effectively do is help the audience identify with Evan, who gains relationships he lacked through Connor's family at the potential expense of them, his single mom (Julianne Moore) and peers who have invested in his elaborate fable.
Some early criticism has felt like nitpicking (yes, older actors sometimes play high-school students), but the root problems are harder to escape. It's also difficult not to compare this adaptation with Apple TV+'s filmed version of another 2017 Tony nominee, "Come From Away," which preserves its power in a way this movie doesn't.
On the plus side, anyone who wanted to see "Dear Evan Hansen" on stage now has a chance, with the original star. Yet while the film says something that matters, for a show whose press notes proclaim it a "generation-defining Broadway phenomenon," a great deal appears to have been lost in translation.
"Dear Evan Hansen" premieres in US theaters on Sept. 24. It's rated PG-13.
Huang Zhijie, the executive editor of Watching Media and a popular self-media blogger, has resurfaced after disappearing from social media for six months when one of his posts curried enough anonymous threats to himself and his family that he called the police. Huang’s troubles began around the Lunar New Year, when photos of people kowtowing to their elders made the rounds online. He lambasted the New Year’s tradition as “backwards”—and then was bombarded with phone calls and messages from strangers asking for his address. Mandy Zuo first reported on the controversy for the South China Morning Post in February:
Huang made his comments last week as videos of the ritual started circulating online, posting on WeChat and the news platform Toutiao that doing it [sic] one’s parents was a matter of personal choice but to make people do it in groups in public was an “invisible social oppression”.
In response to some popular videos of the ritual as the Chinese national celebrated their new year in the past week, Huang warned in several posts on WeChat and news platform Toutiao that such practice is “bringing history backwards”. [Source]
In a now-censored WeChat post from May 11, Xiao Hui (@小晖) pointed out that Huang had been silent for two months to the day, and defended him as a chronicler of “the lives of ordinary people”:
From reading @YouYouLuMing’s posts about ordinary people, I personally believe that he is a compassionate writer. He writes about society from every angle. For example, with the kowtowing issue, he thinks it doesn’t make sense, so he wrote about that.
Yet it was precisely this issue that kicked the hornet’s nest. @YouYouLuMing received threats from so many people that he had no choice but to call the police. [Chinese]
Then, in early September, Huang announced his return on his WeChat public account, YouYouLuMing (@呦呦鹿鸣). (His account name is the first line of a poem from the Book of Songs.) In his post, translated in full below by CDT, Huang says nothing about why he vanished, but it appears from how worried his family had been that his disappearance was not his idea. It is also clear that in contrast with his critics’ accusations, he has an abiding respect for the power of Chinese tradition—though for him, that power comes not from immortals dwelling in mountains, but from the people who call on those immortals, the people who will do anything to save the ones they love:
It is highly unlikely that this post is even showing up on your feed.
If you are reading this, that means there is a thread that binds us, a connection that is as beautiful as it is good.
I have so much to say, but I don’t know where to begin.
Due to forces beyond my control, for the past six months I have been unable to update @YouYouLuMing or respond to your messages. It’s only today that I’ve been able to log back on, but as the WeChat platform automatically deletes older messages after a certain limit is reached, I’m afraid I’ll never get to read the majority of comments left by readers during my time away.
To me, there’s nothing more unfortunate in the world than this, because hidden in these messages are the feelings, great and small, that move us.
Luckily, I can peer through the cracks and still see a few.
A fan in Gansu Province sent me a message from outside the delivery room: “At 10:20 my child was born, a son, and I only wish that Master Huang could choose a name for him. When he grows up I’ll tell him the origin of his name, and he’ll be able to follow Master Huang’s account and read Master Huang’s essays. With you as his role model, he’ll surely grow up to become a just and honorable man.”
Even though @YouYouLuMing hadn’t been updated for quite some time, he was confident it would still be there when his child was grown.
Another friend left this note: “The other day at work I found myself in a panic thinking about what you are going through. In a moment of carelessness I was injured by something that fell and, well, bled quite a bit… You could say that the scar is there because of you, and each time I look at it I can’t help but think of what’s happening to you…”
My 70-year-old aunt, who hadn’t been able to see me for a long time and had no idea how I was doing, got so anxious that she decided to brave the wilderness and go up into the mountains to ask the local “immortals” for answers.
She drew three divination slips, and, to her surprise, all three indicated bad luck. Sure enough, worry gave way to fear, which gave way to dread. My aunt hurriedly made an offering, and headed home in a fury.
The very next day, my mom, dad, and the rest of the gang climbed back up the mountain. The first divination they drew was also bad. At that moment, my mother stood in the very spot where the local “immortals” have lived peacefully for over a thousand years, and, in a voice low and full of trepidation, told my life story. It went something like this: “Little Huang, this child… even though he left this place to seek his fortune and hasn’t been back to pay his respects to the ancestors and spirits, he’s still a good, reliable boy. I know you’ve looked after him since he was young, and truth be told he’s always revered the gods and honored his ancestors, and spends his time doing good deeds. I know the spirits are busy, but I beg you, please don’t forget that he’s a child of this land. When he faces raging waters, build him a bridge. When he meets with bad luck, turn it to good. We the faithful are grateful for your aid,” and so on. When she was done, she drew another divination slip, on which was written, “The clouds disperse / harmony from this day forth.”
And it was only then that their worries were relieved.
The best psychologist in China had been there all along.
“Divination Slip Number 58 /pull into port and find riches /no misfortune or hardship /the clouds disperse / harmony from this day forth”
I finally returned to my hometown two days ago. I had been gone for so long, but nothing had changed.
Looking up at the bright, blue sky, I felt once more the scorching autumn sun and the hot air as it rippled languidly through the valley, enveloping me in light… A thought took form in my mind: “It is as beautiful as it is good.”
You can breathe freely here. At any time, you can feel this wind, this sunshine. Your eyes move from the green of the trees to the white of the clouds, to the grey of the buildings, to the translucence of the water, to the quiet of the mountains, to the buzzing of the insects, connecting the whole… Even though you are silent, even though you are completely alone, it is sublime.
Why is Nature—and all living things—sublime? Because in this space between heaven and earth where we live and strive, immersed in time or simply marking it, there are people who care about one another.
How dear, this tender, anxious, hopeful care.
I took this selfie on the road for you. Please don’t worry about me.
To those friends who never received a reply to the messages they left for me over the past six months (and even before), please take heart that your concern for me was not in vain.
I have maintained @YouYouLuMing for over eight years and written over a thousand essays. Though that may seem a gargantuan task, I’m not the one who should be offered thanks. In truth, it’s those friends who quietly cared about me who deserve thanks. It was you—each and every one of you, day after day—who gave me strength and inspiration, who gave me the courage to continue on, and who made me believe that there is such a thing as goodwill among strangers in this world. It was all of you who showed me that the world is “both beautiful and good.”
Tomorrow’s plans are for tomorrow. Today, right now, there is only one thing left for me to say: Thank you, dear readers, and I wish you the very best! [Chinese]
An international ad campaign can go very wrong when you don’t involve professional translation professionals. Without their help, even the world’s biggest companies (with the marketing budgets to match) can wind up making some pretty heinous mistakes.
These errors usually occur when the company in question relies on a machine translation for work that better suits a linguist.
When it comes to machine translation online, these services are suitable for basic projects with internal audiences. Its software can produce literal, word-for-word translation in a short period. But as any experienced language translation company can attest, machine translation’s literal approach isn’t the right strategy for an international marketing campaign.
What works in one region and language doesn’t always have the same impact in another part of the world. In some cases, literal translation creates a new slogan that can have a shockingly different meaning from the original.
Here are four companies that have learnt this lesson the hard way.
1. HSBC — Do nothing
In 2009, multinational investment bank HSBC adopted a new tagline, “Assume Nothing,” to address consumers’ reluctance to invest during a global recession. While this uncompromising motto sounds fantastic in English, it was mistranslated into an apathetic “Do Nothing” in many countries.
Now known as “the world’s private bank,” HSBC spent $10 million (£6.8 million) in rebranding to fix this translation error. This would have been easily avoided had they just involved professional translation services from the start.
2. KFC — Eat your fingers
“Finger lickin’ good” has been KFC’s slogan since 1956, but in the 1980s, it got the fast-food chain into trouble. While the original tagline makes sense to an American audience on account of how most people eat the fried chicken with their hands, its translation into Chinese took a surprising turn.
When KFC expanded into Beijing, it went with a literal translation of the original copy that meant “eat your fingers off” to native speakers.
The best professional translation companies hire native speakers to help with ad translations, so they would have caught this error before the first store opened.
3. Apple — This is penis
While the latest Apple flagship is the iPhone 12, it was the iPhone 7 that got the tech company into hot water. Their slogan “This is 7” didn’t introduce the smartphone to Hong Kong customers like they first assumed. Its translation into Cantonese announced “This is penis” instead.
As Quartz first reported, the number “seven” is slang for penis in Cantonese, and it’s often used to make fun of someone or something. This error would have been easy for a linguist to flag if Apple hired the right Cantonese translation services in the first place.
4. American Dairy Association — Are you lactating?
Last but not least, the American Dairy Association (ADA) made its own blunder when advertising American milk in Mexico.
In the US, the ADA is famous for its iconic tagline “Got Milk?” which ran on ads with celebrities touting the nutritional value of drinking milk. Some of the world’s biggest celebrities sported milk moustaches on these posters, including Britney Spears, David Beckham, and Taylor Swift.
When expanding this campaign into Mexico, no one at the ADA ran their slogan by English to Spanish translation services. Otherwise, they would have caught that their literal translation turned “Got Milk” into “Are You Lactating?”.
The takeaway
All of these errors were entirely preventable. If these companies hired professional translation services to help adjust their ad campaigns for international audiences, talented linguists would have caught these mistakes and provided a better alternative.
