What does NBA phenom, Jeremy Lin have in common with the following?
- 林书豪Jeremy Lin （2010-）
- 出身哈佛的总统（任期）
- 约翰·亚当斯John Adams （1797-1801）
- 约翰·昆西·亚当斯John Quincy Adams （1825-1829）
- 海耶斯Rutherford B. Hayes （1877-1881）
- 西奥多·罗斯福Theodore Roosevelt （1901-1909）
- 肯尼迪John F. Kennedy （1961-1963）
- 小布什George W. Bush （2001-2009）
- 欧巴马Barack Obama （2009-）
Heck if I know. But the bloggers of Foggy Bottom’s blog, Wild Geese, apparently know. Except that they’re not telling us. (Laura R says they all went to Harvard).
In the aftermath of the Pop the Magic Blog Disappearance of our favorite FS blogger in China, one of our readers helpfully suggested that the best way to avoid blogging trouble is obviously, to blog in Chinese like the Wild Geese bloggers. Here is what the reader actually wrote us:
In order for a blog to survive 21st Century Statecraft (and Alec J. Ross knows about this), you have to write it in Chinese so that nobody knows what the heck you are saying. Just look at the “Wild Geese” blog written by two Chinese contractors working for the Bureau of International Information Programs at http://blogs.america.gov/mgck/. There’s no English translation so nobody at the State Department knows what they’re really saying or how they’re saying it. It’s like it’s a secret blog lurking in the shadows of America.gov, a website that was archived last year.
And here I thought I was good at keeping track of what’s going on over there. But it gets worse — even the State Department’s China Desk apparently cannot read what the blog says because — it’s in Chinese with no English translation! Is it common to have a China Desk Officer who has other languages except Chinese?
Then it gets double bad. Our blog reader continues:
US Embassy Beijing website (http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/usintro.html) mentions Wild Geese in English but no English translation of what the blogs say. China Desk is in the dark. IIP Chinese blog team acts like a renegade group of nativists (IIP is remnant of former USIA) with former PRC nationals calling the shots on what gets written for blog posts. Most of what they write is a waste of taxpayer money (good luck with OIG on that one). State’s “partnership” with the fiery anti-American Chinese “Global Times” news portal (http://blog.huanqiu.com/?316055) strains credibility. They’re too willing to submit to Chinese censorship. China blocks VOA but not IIP. Too cozy for comfort. See South China Morning Post article on jailing of Chinese writers http://topics.scmp.com/news/china-news-watch/article/Pen-is-subject-to-the-sword.
They’re calling the shots on what gets written in the blog? Good grief! Peter Van Buren calls the shots on what gets written in his private blog and State sends him a weekly report! And he writes in English!
So I used the Googles to look up the blog but I get all sorts of other wild guesses from the search engines. So the blog must have had no index bots and it does not get listed. Almost as if only those with the secret link can read it. Now, where’s the fun in that? Anyway, I eventually used the link sent by our reader. The blog is hiding in plain site in US Mission China’s website (see a screen capture below) but it actually resides in the America.gov server: http://blogs.america.gov/mgck/
The America.gov website says that it is no longer being updated. Except that the Wild Geese blog continues to post items of every sort. Besides the recent post on Jeremy Lin, it also has the following posts:
1. Guy with a furry hair. Is that a Queen’s Guard? The last I heard these soldiers are charged with guarding the official royal residences in London. There are no royal residences in the District of Columbia.
2. Who are these people and what are they doing up that tree, er pole?
3. Something about extreme makeover? Is this relevant to US-China relation?
4. Is that Hillary and is she having coffee, again?
See, that’s what happens when you put up a blog with no English translation in a USG website nonetheless. The successor of America.gov, IIP Digital (you may stop laughing at the name right now!) actually has translations in the following languages for their products:
Now, official products for public consumption also have to go through a clearance process. Are we to understand that the Wild Geese blog posts do not even go through that process? I can’t even begin to imagine that. Since the blog exist over the dead body of America.gov, who do these bloggers report to? Since it does not pop up in the search engines, what use does it have if no one can easily find it? Perhaps more importantly, who has oversight over this official blog? And does the oversight official speak/read more than a 2/2 Chinese?
Matt Armstrong who was Executive Director of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy until December 2011 (when it was killed by Congress) and was supposed to be in Beijing the week the commission’s authorization expired chimed in about the Geese:
“I’ve been consistently told the Geese are republished in China, including in anti-US Chinese media (a score in my book) and content was driven by Embassy Beijing’s outreach staff, including those who speak/read Chinese (in other words, this isn’t a renegade group). Monitoring is done by the Embassy and EAP. It is monitored by the Chinese speakers in the EAP bureau, some on the China desk and some on the EAP Public Diplomacy desk.”
Presumably, there is someone among them with more than a 2/2 in Chinese.
噢，這真是個快樂的進展……噢，这真是个快乐的进展……
*Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan…
Matt also points out that the blog’s audience “is not the US but China,” and “not even Chinese nationals abroad, but mainland China, which it seems to effectively penetrate at apparently relatively low cost.” We get that, of course. Still would be nice to have an English translation and wouldn’t it be interesting to see its penetration rate relative to cost?
I do have to admit that the idea of blogging in Chinese or other super hard languages has a great appeal. According to our mathematical calculation, FS blogs in super hard languages has a 5% to 0% chance of ever getting in real trouble. And if diplomatic spouses start blogging in super hard languages like Chinese or Arabic , the harassment would likely be down to almost zero instantly because 1) State does not have enough Chinese or Arabic speakers, 2) to actually read the blog and find it offensive enough to be pulled down requires a translator, too much paperwork to request for one; 3) all human translators are deployed elsewhere, and online translators include dirty words.
Updated on 2/19 with comments from Matt Armstrong of http://mountainrunner.us/
*Oh, this is a happy development…
Related articles
- China: Several Tibetan Language Blog Sites Shut Down (advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org)
- Linsanity (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
- Inside China: Savoring 9/11 (washingtontimes.com)
Someone beat me to it, but yep, #2 is plebes from USNA getting the “dixie cup” from the Herndon monument. Yes, it is greased.
Thanks ADA. I try very hard to be brillianter every day! And James is probably correct on both counts but why would midshipmen try to climb a pole? I gotta look that up, or that’s going to keep me awake tonight. Let me know pronto when you put your Mandarin to good use!
DYING. LAUGHING!!!!!
Okay, first off, you are so way more brillianter than I will ever be. For you have discovered my way to become Tiger-Proof FOREVER: to write all of my blog posts in Chinese!!! Why haven’t I thought of that before?!?! I *did* get my 2/1+ from FSI in Mandarin, after all, and so I should put that score to some good use!
And the guy with the big hair? (Holy cow, those pictures Cracked. Me. UP!) James immediately was able to identify him as the drum major for the Marine Corps Band. James also theorizes that the people climbing the pole are midshipmen at the US Naval Academy. What on earth is being said about these pictures, we couldn’t even fathom. Tiger proof indeed! My husband even has a 2/2 in Mandarin, and if *he* doesn’t know what’s being said, I can guarantee that 99% of potential Tigers don’t, either! You are brilliant.
Those are indeed midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy. Specifically, they are plebes (freshmen) climbing the Herndon monument in their final act of plebe-dom. You can wiki it for the low down on all the details, but needless to say it is one of many silly things people do in the employ of the USG.
Thanks, J.D. I just wiki up the Herndon monument and the “plebes-no-more” ceremony. I wonder how the bloggers explained this to the Chinese. Well, I’ll try not to get nightmares about it.
ADA, you hit upon an interesting point when you write, “What on earth is being said about these pictures, we couldn’t even fathom.” The reason that people, the American people, should be asking questions about this blog and its purpose is that the State Department, as the official representative of American culture and values to other countries, has a responsibility to make sure that those who are writing on behalf of the State Department know what they are talking about and are sufficiently sensitive about how they present these images. Who’s responsible for this? The IIP leader, aka the Coordinator, which is actually an assistant secretary level position, is responsible. And who is the Coordinator for IIP? It’s Dawn McCall (see her bio here: http://www.state.gov/r/iip/c22731.htm ) If the blogs don’t have corresponding English translations, McCall doesn’t have a clue what is really being written and ultimately she is the one who is responsible for the content. But the really baffling thing here is that blogs are usually reserved for senior level officials like McCall herself, not low level contractors who have no standing in the State Dept., to make a point about US foreign policy. In the end, what’s the point of the Wild Geese blog? Who’s getting the message? And just what is the message anyway? And why are American taxpayer’s paying for it? Don’t believe the misinformation and the propaganda from the apologists who tell you that they’ve been assured that everything is fine and dandy. Remember that IIP is the propaganda bureau. Don’t believe it just because they say it’s so. Keep asking the questions and remain skeptical.