D - The New Voice of China

And it's me. After a two week hiatus, IM is back to talk about my latest experience of note here in China. First, however, a little background is required. Dalian is uniquely positioned in China's northeast as a port. As an ice-free port, Japan, Russia, and China fought many battles over the peninsula in the last two centuries. Now that the city is free to do business, the Port of Dalian has evolved to become one of the Top 20 ports in the world. Naturally such a venture is interested in attracting foreign investment, and that's where I came in. The Port company has a public relations video they produce to inform people about the capabilities of the port and to advise of future plans for expansion. The video is reworked about every 2 years or so in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Most recently, the voiceover for the English version was done by an Australian foreign teacher that the FAO of the Port company ran into on the street. This year however, no such chance encounter was forthcoming, so they called up DMU (whom they have a partnership with) to track down an English speaker. For whatever reason, she called me and offered me the opportunity to work with the Port company.

The Port company FAO sent me over a working script for the eleven minute video and I edited it to improve the grammar and vocabulary. Then on Wednesday of last week, he picked me up and brought me to the training center of the company, where they had a small recording room. For the next three and a half hours, one paragraph at a time, they would play the video and I would read. Sometimes I would nail the paragraph in a single take, but more often it required two or three readings. The script is filled with long words that are necessary to describe seaport operation. Combined with the fact that the Chinese version of the script can be read about 1.5 times faster, the unwieldy vocabulary made it difficult to say all the words clearly and yet within the time constraints of the pictures on the screen. Although Chinese can seem like caveman speak to a foreigner if literally translated, its pictographic nature gives it remarkable expressive power in a short number of sounds. We had to edit the English version on the fly several times to make the words fit within the confines of the video.

From a humor standpoint, there were a few moments of interest. When we first started, I apparently wasn't giving the rather dry material enough emotional impact. In the event of an insignificantly dramatic performance, the head of public relations for the Port (who joined us in the recording studio) would say something to the FAO and the recording guy, and the FAO would then translate for me. "More emotion! Stronger! Faster! Slower! More passionate!" I did my best to keep a straight face given the unenviable task of making "The Port of Dalian was founded in 1899..." into an Oscar-worthy performance.

Here's a few snippets of the video script:

"The Port of Dalian is planning to build a new crude oil terminal with draft of -27 meters and capable of accommodating 500,000 dwt ULCC tankers. The capacity of crude oil storage will increase to 9 million cubic meters and the refined oil storage will increase to 1 million cubic meters. By the year of 2010, Dalian Port Xingang District will become an international trans-shipment hub and logistics and distribution center for oil products and liquefied chemicals with an annual volume of 80 million tons."

"In August 2006, the State Council approved the establishment of the Dalian Dayaowan Bonded Harbor Area. This is the most preferential policy for port development. Taking this as an opportunity, the Port of Dalian will speed up port construction, develop the Bonded Harbor Area into the logistics hub of Northeast China and contribute to the revitalization of the old Northeast Industrial Base. In 2006, the throughput of Port of Dalian made a record of 200 million tons and became one of the Top 20 ports in the world."

But the absolute best part of the video is the end, when the documentary is brought to a stirring conclusion....

"Holding the Seas and Harboring the World, the Port of Dalian, now over a century old, is still full of dreams and ambitions."

The Port company FAO informs me he will provide a copy of the video with my performance for my records, at which point I will certainly YouTube it for the world. All in all, it was a good job for me to take. I was paid 2000 RMB for my trouble, and I have to say I liked it more than teaching Oral English. A few more jobs like that and maybe we could actually go to South Korea for the May holiday after all.