Bruce: Sure, I guess, if you think it's worth it...
HTFU: I'd do it myself, but I'm working on xxx.
Bruce: Right on. I was thinking about doing that, but I went with yyy.
HTFU: Oh wow, I hadn't even heard of that. I can't wait to see.
Bruce: You won't have to wait long, xxx looks short enough.
HTFU: Excellent. Happy Valentine's Day!
...and so on...
Can you tell I want to much to be a
Someone says: you're better off sticking to translations. And I don't mind. But how to choose? So much out there.
There's a debate going on right now, and I decided it pertained to me and what I do elsewhere than here (drum roll, this is a first for this blog), so I chipped in:
UPDATE: One actor's side to the story.
Who else is interested in the idea of a collaborated effort between 'China translation bloggers'?
I ask this question not just as part of the China tag at Global Voices, but as someone who spends the majority of each day following conversations on Chinese blogs, and someone who in whatever case considers ESWN, Danwei, CDT and many others as colleagues working on the same project, as much as I consider myself a part of the larger Global Voices website.
What I do at GV is essentially serve as a translation function. After a year of at least two translation posts each week, it's fair to say that the GV China space does not take sides or seek to align itself with any specific blog or promote any specific viewpoints. Granted, out of all the China bloggers, ESWN is linked to in GV China posts more than any other single blogger, but this has to do with GV's stated aim to present blogs as newsworthy alternatives to mainstream media and the fact that ESWN is often the only place where original blogging of major Chinese news events can be found.
For the first few months I would stay up late each night to see what ESWN and Danwei had posted for the day before beginning my own GV post, only so that I wouldn't end up repeating what was already out there, and the only difference now, a year into blogging full-time about China, is that there are many more blogs to keep track of. I have in the past contacted both ESWN and Danwei, but to the extent of roughly five e-mails each over the past year, and almost never in a 'let's do this or that' context.
Do you know what time Roland goes to bed? This was not a practical work situation, but with just the tip of the iceberg of what's going on in China making it into English each day, I wasn't and am still not willing to waste a single post. If I could at least rest assured that certain topics or incidents would be blogged, then I wouldn't end up wasting my time second-guessing myself or scrapping translations halfway through after seeing them pop up on ESWN. A wikipedia model of translation news blogging stands to offer so much more than a blog which is limited to copying, pasting and offering critiques on mainstream media news reports.
Does this interest anyone? Obviously, a group of China bloggers has already formed a more than loose network, but what's a blogger like myself, in a position and seriously determined to increase original English-language China news' surface area, to do?