Press Interpreter

03/10/07 -- During the ‘two sessions’*, delegates** occasionally spouted some startling words, including many that went against ‘popular opinion and common sense’, comments that made more than a few uncomfortable. For instance, there was the suggestion that Tai Mountain be designated the National Mountain***, the comment that price gouging during the peak travel times of the Lunar New Year was part of the laws of the market, a proposal for renaming Ladies’ Day as Womyn’s day****, and the claim that a ban on smoking would undermine social stability. There was even a representative that wrote a draft of a resolution entitled, “Environmental Protection Begins With Me,” decried by netizens as “the work of a seven-year-old.”

Some people have reacted with anger, thinking that the thoroughly unrealistic and excessively myopic rhetoric of these delegates is an embarrassment. Both magnification by the media and fulminations on the internet turned the words of some delegates into the targets of public outcry, baptizing them in the collective spittle of netizens—some of whose verbal attacks felt downright physical.

At first glance, it would seem that those purveyors of rhetorical nonsense got the scolding they deserved, but careful considerations shows that that is absolutely not the case.

Some people lament that delegates in recent years are ‘increasingly willing to speak out’, among whom there is no lack of those who loudly look for blame, which has become known as ‘gradually looking for someone to extol one’s own position.’ Why is it that today there is such willingness to speak out? Delegates speak out and argue on behalf of the public will; their ‘willingness to speak out’ is the collective embodiment of the people’s expanding rhetorical space. Even though some of their sayings reflect narrow parochial interests, such as when an official of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau tells us that banning cigarettes will undermine social stability, or when the delegates of Shandong think that Tai Mountain should become the National Mountain, still, this willingness to speak out, unafraid to make mistakes, even to the point of unthinkingly discussing issues, is a display of progress that should elicit gladness. How will those fearful of saying the wrong things ever have the courage to speak the perilous words of truth?

The right to criticize should exist in conjunction with the responsibility to criticize rationally. If anyone who deviates from the orbit of health care, education, housing, and other ‘legitimate questions’ by bringing up novel suggestions and unique sayings is beaten down, this will only ‘enlighten’ more delegates, inhibiting them and silencing them like the cicadas of late fall. It will also undermine the goal of uniting delegates from different levels and of different interests in discussion about national policy and direction. What’s more, every time someone ‘talks nonsense’, who will be able to point it out?

After ‘hexie’ (harmony) became a national theme, someone devised the following interpretation of the characters for that word*****: the ‘mouth’ and the ‘millet’ components of the ‘he’ character demonstrate that everyone has food to eat; the ‘all’ and ‘word’ of the ‘xie’ character indicate that everyone has words to speak. Interpreting ‘hexie’ (harmony) in this way is not only coincidence, but is the pleading of a China in transition, a pleading to “properly solve the problems of the people’s livelihood and democracy” in order to bring about basic ‘hexie’ (harmony).

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In today’s expanding pursuit of freedom and democracy, these famous words of Voltaire resonate to an even greater extent. This saying has been held up as a guiding axiom of morality. How then can we not use it as a standard for our attitude toward delegates that ‘talk nonsense’? Everyone has a right to the freedom of opinion, which is a manifestation of democracy, and if most people use their right to speak rationally, then it will serve an inestimable service in perfecting democracy. If, when delegates open their mouths, they are not beset by worry about attacks from the ‘thought police’******, is this not progress?

[Full text]

* The ‘two sessions’ are a series of annual meetings held concurrently by the National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in which legislation is proposed and voted on and the principles of Communism are discussed, respectively.

** The ‘delegates’ referred to in this article are those selected for the NPC and CPPCC.

***This proposal is akin to naming the bald eagle as the national bird in the United States. Tai Mountain is in Shandong province. The proposal was controversial because there is no consensus on which mountain best represents China collectively. Some viewed the move as an attempt to garner tourism for Shandong.

****The name of the holiday referred to here is International Working Women's Day. The Chinese name for this holiday is simply ‘funüjie’ (妇女节), which directly translates as ‘Ladies’ Day’. The proposal called for the name to be changed to ‘nüxingjie’ (女性节), which literally means ‘Women’s Day’. For all intents and purposes, these two words—funü and nüxing—translate the same way into English, the only difference being that the former is more polite than the latter. The purpose of changing the name of the holiday, however, was to make the name more politically correct. The delegate advancing the proposal cited the fact that the ‘fu’ character in ‘funü’ (meaning ‘lady’) graphically represents a woman and a broom, suggesting that women belong in the home. For that reason, I chose to translate ‘nüxing’ as ‘womyn,’ because this word has been promoted to eliminate the presumed gender bias in the English word ‘women’.

*****The ‘harmonious society’ or ‘hexie shehui’ (和谐社会) is a Chinese Communist slogan currently en vogue that has become the central theme of Hu Jintao’s administration. The following passage is an exercise in breaking down the characters for ‘hexie’ into smaller characters and then using the inherent meaning in those smaller characters to understand some aspect of ‘hexie’.

******This is not a direct translation, but it hits on the meaning. A more literal translation would be ‘the linguistic tyranny of many people’.

[Editorial]

By Bi Shicheng

--Translated by D. Owen Young

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