TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina
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0:10 - 0:11Hello, everybody.
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0:11 - 0:14Welcome to the Open Translation lounge
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0:14 - 0:19for the TED Found In Translation
sessions here at TEDGlobal in Scotland. -
0:19 - 0:20Today, we have two speakers.
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0:20 - 0:22First for us this week,
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0:22 - 0:25we have An Xiao Mina,
who just left the stage minutes ago. -
0:25 - 0:28And Hetain Patel, who actually
delivered his talk several days ago. -
0:28 - 0:32Also joining us here on the stage
is Coco from Hong Kong, -
0:32 - 0:35Shadia from Mauritius Island,
and Jan from the Czech Republic. -
0:35 - 0:40Joining us online, over here,
we have Matti from Hong Kong, -
0:40 - 0:44Jason from Hong Kong as well,
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0:44 - 0:46Anna from Italy and Anja from Slovenia.
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0:46 - 0:48- Hi.
-
0:48 - 0:50- Welcome.
I'm going to start with you, An. -
0:50 - 0:52Fantastic talk,
thank you so much for joining us. -
0:52 - 0:56Your talk was all about memes
as a means of expression. -
0:56 - 1:00And the examples were highly localised,
but they're also universal. -
1:00 - 1:01Everyone got them immediately.
-
1:01 - 1:03Could you talk about that in the context
-
1:03 - 1:05of having all these people
from around the world? -
1:06 - 1:09- Sure. What's really interesting
to me about Internet culture -
1:09 - 1:12is if we think about Hollywood -
I grew up partially in the Philippines, -
1:12 - 1:14my family is Filipino-Chinese -
-
1:14 - 1:17and I remember travelling around
and going to the most rural areas -
1:17 - 1:19of the Philippines,
seeing people with Coke bottles -
1:19 - 1:21or watching Hollywood movies.
-
1:21 - 1:25There's always the sense of Hollywood
or mass media providing a global culture. -
1:25 - 1:28What I'm interested in
is Internet culture. -
1:28 - 1:30It's more like a ground up
version of that, -
1:30 - 1:33it's coming from a local version.
-
1:33 - 1:36That's why I used the word 'street-art',
or hip-hop culture. -
1:36 - 1:40I'm interested in how Internet culture
can become this bridge culture. -
1:40 - 1:43Just like I can talk about
Arnold Schwarzenegger in rural Uganda, -
1:43 - 1:45or in New York City.
-
1:45 - 1:49Just two days ago, I was talking
with an Italian, an Indian and then me - -
1:49 - 1:51sounds like an intro to a joke,
-
1:51 - 1:55and it was because we were all talking
about how people in Italy, in India -
1:55 - 1:59and in Uganda were all filming their
ministers of government falling asleep. -
1:59 - 2:01That became an Internet meme.
-
2:01 - 2:02It suddenly became this bridge.
-
2:03 - 2:04"Oh, your ministers fall asleep, too!"
-
2:04 - 2:08And, so, I'm interested in how
this Internet culture -
2:08 - 2:11can be a bridge culture
that's driven by people. -
2:11 - 2:14It is incredibly local
and becomes a bridge for storytelling, -
2:14 - 2:17and maybe even for global,
civic engagement, global understanding. -
2:17 - 2:20Now I know a little bit more
about what's going on in India, -
2:20 - 2:22in a way I can relate to.
-
2:22 - 2:26So, that's really what I hope
people really got from the talk. -
2:26 - 2:29And kind of what I'm looking at
with my founding partner, Jason Li, -
2:29 - 2:31with our new site called The Civic Beat,
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2:31 - 2:33is can this be a bridge for storytelling,
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2:33 - 2:36and then, from there,
active engagement online. -
2:36 - 2:39And global understanding.
-
2:39 - 2:40- Great.
-
2:40 - 2:43Actually, I'd like to take
a question from the Skype crowd. -
2:43 - 2:45Does anybody have a question
for An to begin with? -
2:45 - 2:49- I can start,
but I don't think I have a question. -
2:49 - 2:53I'd like to comment on this
activism side of the argument -
2:54 - 2:58because we recently had
some protests in Slovenia -
2:58 - 3:03and it was quite a shock because
a lot of people said they would be coming, -
3:03 - 3:05and not a lot of people came.
-
3:05 - 3:08So are memes just a form
of online activism -
3:09 - 3:12that isn't translated into public space,
-
3:12 - 3:16and, therefore, lacks some kind of
political legitimacy -
3:16 - 3:18for politicians and the government?
-
3:18 - 3:21- That's a really great question.
-
3:21 - 3:23It's something I've struggled with a lot
-
3:23 - 3:27because it does seem like
we're sharing pictures of cats. -
3:27 - 3:28Like, what is this doing?
-
3:28 - 3:30You know, one phrase I use,
-
3:30 - 3:32and the reason I brought in
this essay from Havel -
3:32 - 3:36is this notion of a ladder of engagement
to civic expression. -
3:36 - 3:38It always starts with little steps.
-
3:39 - 3:41And, certainly, many times,
-
3:41 - 3:44you see instances where people
are talking a lot online. -
3:44 - 3:47And it doesn't seem
like they're engaging offline. -
3:47 - 3:48But, then, over time,
-
3:48 - 3:53and one of my favourite examples
is the sunglasses meme -
3:53 - 3:54that I ended the talk on,
-
3:54 - 3:57where everyone was wearing
sunglasses for Chen Guangcheng. -
3:58 - 4:00OK, it seems like
this is just empty expression, -
4:00 - 4:03it's not going anywhere,
nothing's happening. -
4:03 - 4:06But, again, if you think about
the context of China, -
4:06 - 4:10where there's heavy suppression
of any kind of political-public assembly, -
4:10 - 4:13there is actually reports of people
wearing sunglasses -
4:13 - 4:16in a form of flash mob in physical space.
-
4:16 - 4:19They actually went to the town
where Chen was being held, -
4:19 - 4:21nearby where he was being held,
-
4:21 - 4:24and they assembled together,
and all wore sunglasses. -
4:24 - 4:26That became a form
of physical public assembly. -
4:26 - 4:32So, it's hard to imagine that happening
without first the meme popping up. -
4:32 - 4:35So, it doesn't always happen that way,
-
4:35 - 4:38but there's so many cases where
we're seeing how a meme presages -
4:39 - 4:43any kind of physical action or assembly
that it's really convinced me -
4:43 - 4:45that it really is the beginning
of a larger engagement. -
4:45 - 4:48And it might be discouraging
at the beginning to see people -
4:48 - 4:52clicking and pointing, but I don't want
to see that as a dichotomy. -
4:52 - 4:54If you go to a protest wearing a button,
-
4:54 - 4:56that meme is very much similar
to a button. -
4:56 - 4:58It's a form of visual expression
-
4:58 - 5:01that we've seen in all kinds
of social movements in history. -
5:01 - 5:02- I'd like to bring in Hetain.
-
5:02 - 5:04We were talking yesterday
about how, obviously, -
5:05 - 5:07memes are a way of expressing ourselves,
-
5:07 - 5:10and how language actually -
we express ourselves in different ways. -
5:10 - 5:14The idea of do we have a different
identity in every language that we speak. -
5:14 - 5:17- Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of reasons
why you might feel as though -
5:18 - 5:21you have a different identity
when you speak a different language. -
5:21 - 5:23It might be due to vocabulary.
-
5:23 - 5:27So, from my personal experience,
if I'm speaking Gujarati, -
5:27 - 5:29an Indian language, there's certain things
-
5:29 - 5:34I'm used to talking about in that language
with my grandmother, domestic things. -
5:34 - 5:37In English, I might talk about
a whole different kind of things. -
5:37 - 5:38In French, something else.
-
5:38 - 5:41So, it might be the kind of topic
you speak about, -
5:41 - 5:46and, then, also, something
comes in in the vocabulary also, -
5:46 - 5:50in how you think about things,
through different languages. -
5:50 - 5:53And I actually think
it's not just language. -
5:53 - 5:56Even with one language,
you kind of change who you are, -
5:56 - 5:58depending who you talk to anyway.
-
5:58 - 6:03I guess, every day, we're performing
different versions of ourselves. -
6:03 - 6:09- One of the most popular things I've seen
is Photoshop remixes of police brutality. -
6:09 - 6:13There's a meme in China
called The Fat Cop. -
6:13 - 6:17And there was a protest
in Shifang about pollution, -
6:17 - 6:20and there's this fat cop
that was hitting people. -
6:20 - 6:22And, obviously, very frightening.
-
6:23 - 6:26People took that cop and started
putting him into other images. -
6:26 - 6:29He looked like he was running,
so they put him into, like, movies -
6:29 - 6:31where he looks like he's chasing
after Tom Cruise, -
6:31 - 6:34into all these weird images.
-
6:34 - 6:38And a really similar thing happened
in the United States where, -
6:38 - 6:39I don't know who's from the US,
-
6:39 - 6:42but if you remember the pepper
spraying cop, the famous cop -
6:42 - 6:46who was pepper spraying students
who were engaging in the Occupy movement. -
6:46 - 6:49And he looked like he was
literally watering the plants. -
6:49 - 6:53And, so, people took that image of him,
again, a terrifying image, -
6:53 - 6:56and they took that terror away
by putting it into a context of humour, -
6:56 - 7:00and started Photoshopping him
into images of him, like, -
7:00 - 7:04watering the roses,
or spray-painting in a movie. -
7:04 - 7:08So, those images, they break language.
-
7:08 - 7:12I know exactly what's going on in China,
I know exactly what is happening, -
7:12 - 7:14even if I'm looking at a meme
that's coming from Egypt, -
7:15 - 7:16and I don't speak the language,
-
7:16 - 7:20but I can see and understand it,
in a way, because it's a visual language, -
7:20 - 7:23and that's really compelling to me.
-
7:23 - 7:26- I want to bring in someone from Skype.
Anna, I'd like to bring you. -
7:26 - 7:29Do you have a question for Hetain
or An Xiao Mina? -
7:29 - 7:31- Yes, hello.
-
7:31 - 7:36I was wondering if you think there's any
difference between memes in China -
7:36 - 7:41and in the other countries,
just because China's Internet is censored? -
7:41 - 7:45- I think we see a lot of creativity
because of censorship. -
7:45 - 7:46A lot of the talks this week
-
7:47 - 7:50were talking about how creativity
and innovation come out of necessity. -
7:50 - 7:53And, so, China's Internet
has two things going for it. -
7:53 - 7:55It's one of the world's largest Internets.
-
7:55 - 7:59I think it may have recently become
the world's largest Internet. -
7:59 - 8:02The infrastructure is there to support
a lot of creativity and remixing. -
8:02 - 8:05Then, on the other side, it's one
of the world's most censored Internets. -
8:05 - 8:07So, you have these two factors.
-
8:07 - 8:09A lot of people can be creative online,
-
8:10 - 8:13but then their voices
are stamped on more often. -
8:13 - 8:16So, recently, there were images
of Tiananmen Square - -
8:16 - 8:20I don't know if you remember
the infamous tank image, three tanks, -
8:21 - 8:22and the man standing up to it -
-
8:22 - 8:25there were two images
that stuck out to me. -
8:25 - 8:30One was someone had replaced the tanks
with a kitten looking at the person. -
8:30 - 8:34And another one, they actually replaced
the tanks with rubber ducks, -
8:34 - 8:36and rubber ducks had become
a meme earlier, -
8:36 - 8:39because there's a big rubber duck
floating in Hong Kong, -
8:39 - 8:40an art installation.
-
8:40 - 8:46And, so, that image is incredibly,
incredibly censored in China. -
8:46 - 8:49But by creating these other ways,
putting in a cat, -
8:49 - 8:52I mean, what goes more viral
on the Internet than a cat? -
8:52 - 8:55It's a way to get the message
out there, really quickly. -
8:55 - 8:59Of course, it got deleted pretty quickly,
but it also spread pretty quickly. -
8:59 - 9:04So, I don't want to say
that their creativity is different. -
9:05 - 9:08Part of my talk is that there's actually
a lot of really similar creativity -
9:08 - 9:12around the world, but in China,
you do have this element of censorship -
9:12 - 9:16that compels creativity
in more frequent cases, at least for now. -
9:16 - 9:18- OK, thank you.
- I think, you know, -
9:18 - 9:23I've only looked at three contexts -
at China, a little bit of Philippines, -
9:23 - 9:26and Uganda, and then United States.
-
9:26 - 9:28And there are some similar themes.
-
9:28 - 9:33Police brutality tends to be actually
a similar theme across all of these areas. -
9:33 - 9:35And growing up in Los Angeles,
I understand why that is. -
9:35 - 9:38I saw police brutality myself.
-
9:38 - 9:40It's a frightening situation.
-
9:40 - 9:42So, using humour diffuses that,
-
9:42 - 9:47so, it becomes a very common way
to express ourselves -
9:47 - 9:53and often people, especially in areas
where there's limited free speech, -
9:53 - 9:57people will remix images of their leaders,
so you see a lot of that. -
9:57 - 9:59But, often, it's very local.
-
9:59 - 10:02Some of the more compelling memes
coming out of Sub-Saharan Africa, -
10:02 - 10:04I showed one,
Tweet Like A Foreign Journalist, -
10:04 - 10:08where the Spanish Prime Minister
had said... -
10:08 - 10:10The Spanish economy was tanking,
-
10:10 - 10:14the Spanish Prime Minister sent
a text message to his finance minister, -
10:14 - 10:17and he said, 'Don't worry -
Spain is not Uganda'. -
10:17 - 10:19Uganda's pounced on this.
-
10:19 - 10:21They started saying,
'Uganda is not Spain'. -
10:21 - 10:24And they started posting statistics
about how Uganda's economy is rising, -
10:24 - 10:26all these kinds of issues.
-
10:26 - 10:29That's something really common
I've seen in Sub-Saharan Africa, -
10:29 - 10:34because Sub-Saharan Africa in particular
is misrepresented in global media -
10:34 - 10:35much more often than other places.
-
10:35 - 10:37So, yes, there are some themes,
-
10:37 - 10:41but you can find very local ones
that are really interesting. -
10:41 - 10:44- We have a question from Hong Kong.
Actually, Matti. -
10:44 - 10:47- Do you think is this a new phenomenon,
-
10:47 - 10:50merged with the Internet,
-
10:50 - 10:54or do you have any pre-Internet samples
-
10:54 - 11:00of remixing, for example picture
of leaders, and stuff like that? -
11:01 - 11:02- Oh, yeah, absolutely.
-
11:02 - 11:06What's new about the Internet
is that it's faster. -
11:06 - 11:11I haven't seen anything in history
that's filled with such weirdness. -
11:11 - 11:16I haven't seen cats and llamas
and dogs and pigs. -
11:16 - 11:18But I was just talking with someone,
-
11:18 - 11:20and since we're in the UK,
this is appropriate, -
11:20 - 11:22there's this British publisher,
-
11:22 - 11:26I forget the century,
but his name was John Wilkes. -
11:26 - 11:29He was publishing
the North Briton newspaper. -
11:29 - 11:33It was considered at the time
a very edgy newspaper. -
11:33 - 11:38The 45th issue angered the government
so much that they destroyed -
11:38 - 11:42all the printing presses
and they censored the magazine. -
11:42 - 11:44And then they arrested John Wilkes.
-
11:45 - 11:47But, then, shortly after he's arrested,
-
11:47 - 11:49just like the sunflower seeds,
the number 45 -
11:49 - 11:52started popping up on walls and, again,
-
11:52 - 11:54this is why I bring that analogy
with street art, -
11:54 - 11:56that there is a long history of people
-
11:56 - 11:59taking symbols and images
and putting them out -
11:59 - 12:03as a way of speaking out, even when
that message is being suppressed. -
12:03 - 12:06- I just want to bring in
some of our translator panellists. -
12:06 - 12:08Do you have a question
for either Hetain or An? -
12:08 - 12:13- Our president gets mocked a lot,
but, like, he never... -
12:13 - 12:18I always thought if he can reply
with humour, -
12:18 - 12:22it would be really nice
to solve the situation, -
12:22 - 12:25so I'm wondering, is there any example
-
12:25 - 12:31of how government can handle
this in a rather humorous way? -
12:31 - 12:34- Humorous way,
yeah, that's a great question. -
12:34 - 12:37I don't know if any Americans here
-
12:37 - 12:40remember the Hillary Clinton texting meme
that popped up? -
12:40 - 12:43That wasn't a political commentary.
-
12:43 - 12:44It was just her looking really bad-ass.
-
12:44 - 12:46She was wearing sunglasses and texting.
-
12:46 - 12:49And there are all kinds of joke texts
coming from her -
12:49 - 12:50about how cool she was.
-
12:50 - 12:54And she just opened a Twitter account,
and it's that photo. -
12:54 - 12:56So, I think she's doing it well.
-
12:56 - 12:58Granted, it wasn't criticising her,
-
12:58 - 13:01but she did it well
in terms of embracing it. -
13:01 - 13:05And I think, there's certainly
a culture gap, a generation gap, -
13:05 - 13:09and I do hope that it opens up
a door for using humour -
13:09 - 13:11because I think that would be great,
-
13:11 - 13:14if persons in power can use humour
-
13:14 - 13:16to help talk about
often very difficult issues. -
13:16 - 13:19- We're going to have to wrap it,
we have to head back into session. -
13:19 - 13:22Thank you, An Xiao Mina, and thank you,
Hetain Patel, for joining us. -
13:22 - 13:25And thank you, all the translators.
Thank you very much. -
13:25 - 13:27(Applause)
- Title:
- TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina
- Description:
-
In the TED Found in Translation Session following her talk, An explores the culture of the internet with fellow TEDGlobal Speaker, Hetain Patel, and a global panel of TED Translators.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED Translator Resources
- Duration:
- 13:40
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Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina |