China Briefs Press in Mandarin, Leaving Journalists Tongue-Tied
May 17, 2011
BEIJING -- After years of carping about Western press coverage, China's Foreign Affairs Ministry has finally found a way to curb it: stage its press briefings in Chinese. The first regular briefing to be held entirely in Mandarin and without English translation, on Tuesday, lasted only about half the 30 minutes the ministry's biweekly press sessions used to take. The normally inquisitive journalistic rat pack was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Others simply decided not to attend. ``I could've rushed to make it after my tennis lesson, but I asked myself: `Why am I rushing to something I can't understand?' '' said Keli Plumley, a News-Post reporter who was filling in for a colleague in Beijing and doesn't speak Chinese. ``I decided my backhand would improve faster than my Chinese.'' Rising Nationalistic Sentiment The government's previously announced decision to hold news conferences in Chinese is part of a rising tide of nationalistic sentiment in China. As the country's economy has soared, so has its confidence -- and its frustration at frequently critical international news coverage. ``A respected nation has a respected language,'' the official People's Daily newspaper declared, explaining the all-Chinese news conferences. ``Foreign countries should study the Chinese language to learn more about China.'' But some foreign correspondents say that they're going to learn a lot less about China without English translations. Chinese boasts more than 70,000 different characters, many of them homonyms that can be distinguished only by tones and context. Learning the language is a daunting challenge for many journalists. `Couldn't Understand the Answers' At Tuesday's briefing, ``I could understand some of the questions, but I couldn't understand the answers,'' complained Gilberto Foster, a correspondent for Voice of America who took an eight-week crash course in Chinese before arriving in Beijing for his posting 1 1/2 years ago. Even the few foreign correspondents who got up the courage to ask a question in Chinese didn't necessarily comprehend the response. After painfully reading a query on Sino-German relations written in romanization by his translator, German Press-Agency reporter Andrew Brockman -- who studied Chinese in college a decade ago -- huddled over a recording of the reply. ``I was nervous. I was out of breath. And I didn't really understand the answer,'' confessed Mr. Brockman. Still, he drew sympathetic laughter and a round of applause for his efforts.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
