I can't stand the way they do holidays in China. Today is May Day so we theoretically have three days off, but it doesn't really work out that way. First they count weekends as a day off so one day of this three day vacation was Sunday. Also while they are giving us Monday and Tuesday off we had to have classes on Saturday so it really only works out to one day off. I don't understand why they don't just use three day weekends in this case, which would accomplish the same thing without all the odd schedule switching. This was made even odder by the fact that I had to attend a translation contest on Saturday afternoon. When I first heard they needed someone I assumed it would be the same as the other 20 English contests I've been to. I would judge some speeches for about two hours and then go home. But this one was very different. First, since it was a translation competition I, obviously, couldn't judge, not speaking Chinese. What they wanted me to do instead was to read some lines from a little skit they had written.
The contest had three parts, and each team had three members. The first member would translate several short passages from English to Chinese, the passages seemed to have been taken from Voice of America. The second person would translate a couple of short passages from Chinese to English, these seemed to be tourist information about random Chinese cities. Finally another teacher and I would go up to the stage and read lines from this skit they had written. First I would read one in English, then the last participant would translate that to Chinese. Next the Chinese teacher would read a line in Chinese and the participant would translate that to English. This would continue for a couple of minutes. Basically, they were practicing translating for a business meeting. Every team and these three parts and there were 16 teams. I took nearly five hours. On top of that they asked me to wear a suit, and it was really hot in the auditorium since, while the room was probably air conditioned, they don't turn it on unless it's 8000 degrees outside, which by the way is the normal temperature in the summer around here. So that's how I started my "holiday" standing in for a tape recorder.
The contest had three parts, and each team had three members. The first member would translate several short passages from English to Chinese, the passages seemed to have been taken from Voice of America. The second person would translate a couple of short passages from Chinese to English, these seemed to be tourist information about random Chinese cities. Finally another teacher and I would go up to the stage and read lines from this skit they had written. First I would read one in English, then the last participant would translate that to Chinese. Next the Chinese teacher would read a line in Chinese and the participant would translate that to English. This would continue for a couple of minutes. Basically, they were practicing translating for a business meeting. Every team and these three parts and there were 16 teams. I took nearly five hours. On top of that they asked me to wear a suit, and it was really hot in the auditorium since, while the room was probably air conditioned, they don't turn it on unless it's 8000 degrees outside, which by the way is the normal temperature in the summer around here. So that's how I started my "holiday" standing in for a tape recorder.
1 comment:
Spanish Night!!!!
Mom
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