EastSouthWestNorth in Reverse

No, this has nothing to do playing with compass points.

At the New Media and Social Transformation: Conference this weekend, I will be talking about the EastSouthWestNorth experience.  One reason why I blog is to bridge the gap between Chinese-language versus English-language media coverage of China for the English-reading public.  The model is not limited to this particular situation but applies to any country/subject in any languages.  I am only one person and there is a limit as to what my output and impact can be.  So I hope that others will take up this model and make a difference in the areas where their personal skills and interests lie.

So I am going to translate for you a section of a blog post at the Chinese Tianya-hosted blog 我们的世界.  The front portion goes through a blog post by Austin Arensberg on the typology of bloggers.

我的博客成长历程

依我之见，老外是否了解我们并不是最重要的，重要的是我们能否理解外国人？因此我便产生这样一个想法：每天在博客上翻译一两篇西方媒体对于中国的报道或者评论，同时也对比国内媒体就同一事件的报道或评论，从中找到相互之间的差异，并进一步理解西方人看待中国的立场与角度。
　　说实话，刚开始写博客的时候并没有按照原先的计划，往往是一天打渔，两天晒网，并不是很积极。然而随着时间的推移，慢慢发现有越来越多的人来看自己的博客，于是在点击量的鼓励之下，越来越勤奋努力的写。现在每天已经有一百多的点击量了，一想到居然有这么多人每天来看自己的博客，动力也就越来越足，写起来也就越来越得心应手，思绪如潮。
　　有一天，我在MSN上和一个朋友聊天，聊着聊着对方突然说，你现在说话变得很客观了。我很惊讶的问，为什么？我没感觉到啊？朋友想了想回答：也许是你现在经常写博客的缘故。
　　是的，某种程度上说，博客正在重塑我的生活。

(in translation)

The Growth Process of My Blog

In my opinion. whether the foreigners understand us is not most important.  The important thing is whether we understand the foreigners.  Therefore, I got this idea: each day, I will translate one or two articles of news or commentary in the western media about China.  At the same time, I will compare them against the reports or commentaries on the same event in the Chinese media.  From this, I can find the relative differences and then I can understand the positions and angles by which westerners look at China.

To tell the truth, when I first started the blog, I did not follow my original plan.  Usually "I fish one day and then I spend the next two days letting the net dry in the sun."   I was not very active.  As time went by, I slowly found out that more and more people were reading me.  So with the encouragement of those 'hits,' I worked harder and harder with the writing.  Today, there are more than one hundred 'hits' per day.  When I think that so many people come here everyday to read my blog, I get stronger and stronger and my writing is becoming easier as thoughts come to me like tides.

One day, I was chatting with a friend on MSN.  As we chatted, the other party surprisingly wrote: "You have become more objective now when you talk."  I was surprised and I asked, "Why?  I don't feel anything?"  The friend thought about it and replied: "Maybe it is because you are blogging regularly."

Yes, to a certain extent, my blog has transformed my life.

So the new media may cause a social transformation.  Before that happens (and it may never happen), a deeply satisfying personal transformation takes place first.

If you can read Chinese, then 我们的世界 will be an interesting blog for the reasons that he/she described.  It is EastSouthWestNorth in reverse, to compare English-language versus Chinese-language media coverage of China for the Chinese-reading public.  Of course, this is a simplification, since blogs are personal works and therefore take on the unique characteristics (thoughts, sentiments, styles, contents, training) of the bloggers.