Search from various English teachers...
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Value of Media
I never really took much time to think about the media, despite the fact that they are essential to us. When we read an article or watch the news, we're accepting whatever information they deliver most of the time. We don't resist too much or question whether they hold their standpoints. We often spend time reading the news or watching TV during our brain leisure mode, instead of studying actively by a bunch of proactive thinking.
Recently I talk to my teachers about media and start to relate the media to the country where they come from. Belgium, as a buffer country, is of a made-up country name. The Belgian press, therefore, has not much interest in appealing every Belgian for the compassion. Instead, they provide facts about what is happening surrounding them and out of the country. BBC from Britain also seems to remains to be a political outsider, according to one of my teachers. I cannot deny it as I haven't seen any manipulations from politics. On the other hand, my other teacher Kris is a Belgian journalist working for VRT, based in South East Asia. From his report on Cambodia, the local media couldn't stand any independent point of view under the central government's control.
Although I have a reserved opinion about democracy, I do think it their media has provided free air to media for their voice. At least in some of the democratic countries I know, not including America media.
Now when I think about the situation in China, I can only associate it with Cambodia, except that our media has immersive coverage but heavily biased.
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Suntan = 晒黑？
I recently encountered the Chinese translation of “suntan” that has uneased me for a while. If I’m not wrong, a lot of people translate it as 晒黑. When I read about the vegetable tanning process to the leather this morning, which has enhanced my comprehension about the term “tan”. The unsettled thought came back to urge me to write a few words about my interpretation.
“She caught a tan, how great!” On Wiktionary, the definition of tan is a brown or darkened coloration of the skin caused by exposure to ultraviolet light. No mistake, the Chinese translation 晒黑 is literally exposing to the sun and get a darkened skin color. It seems to be perfectly right. However, this exact term implicit in a pejorative way in China, referring to the blue collars or farms who have to suffer from sun working in the sun for hours. In my culture, women do everything to whiten their skin. See the girls above as if they are about to commit a burglary?
Obviously, 晒黑 doesn’t express the relaxed holiday atmosphere at all but the contrary. So, how could a term suggest both complimentary and pejorative emotions simultaneously?
In stead of 晒黑, maybe 晒肤 would be playing a more neutral role. This later term could be literally translated as expose one’s skin in the sun. This term is new and owns no prior definition. Thinking about the nature of words in Chinese, it’s a verb plus noun, which could stay functioning as a verb after all? I’m not linguistic but that sounds much more logical to me than wear one word with two exact contradictory meanings!
September 4, 2019
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