TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina
-
0:10 - 0:14Hello, everybody. Welcome
to the Open Translation lounge -
0:14 - 0:19for the TED Found In Translation
sessions here at TEDGlobal in Scotland. -
0:19 - 0:21Today, we have two speakers.
First for us this week, -
0:21 - 0:24we have An Xiao Mina,
who just left the stage minutes ago. -
0:24 - 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,
-
0:44 - 0:46Anna from Italy and Anja from Slovenia.
-
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 - 0:59And the examples were really highly
localised, but they're also universal. -
0:59 - 1:02Everyone got them immediately.
Could you talk about that in the context -
1:02 - 1:04of having all these people
from around the world? -
1:04 - 1:08- Sure, yeah. I think what's really
interesting to me about Internet culture -
1:08 - 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 - 1:23or watching Hollywood movies.
There's always the sense of Hollywood -
1:23 - 1:25or mass media providing
a global culture. -
1:25 - 1:28What I'm interested in
is Internet culture. -
1:28 - 1:33It's more like a ground up version of
that, it'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 can be -
2:08 - 2:11a bridge culture
that's driven by people. -
2:11 - 2:14It is incredibly local
and becomes a bridge for storytelling, -
2:14 - 2:16and maybe even for global,
civic engagement, -
2:16 - 2:19global understanding - now I know
a little bit more about -
2:19 - 2:22what's going on in India,
in 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 - 2:32with our new site,
called The Civic Beat, is can this be -
2:32 - 2:36a bridge for storytelling, and then,
from there, active engagement online. -
2:36 - 2:39And global understanding.
-
2:39 - 2:40- Great.
-
2:40 - 2:42Actually, I'd like to take
a question from the Skype crowd. -
2:42 - 2:45Does anybody have a question
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 - 3:32You know, one phrase I use,
and the reason I brought in this -
3:32 - 3:35essay from Havel, is this notion
of a ladder of engagement -
3:35 - 3:38to civic expression.
It 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 convince me that -
4:43 - 4:45it 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 - 5:31I'm used to talking about
in that language -
5:31 - 5:34with 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 actually think
it's not just language. -
5:53 - 5:56Even with one language,
you kind of change who you are, -
5:56 - 5:59depending who you talk to anyway.
I guess, every day, -
5:59 - 6:03we're performing different
versions of ourselves, kind of thing. -
6:03 - 6:06- One of the most popular things
I've seen -
6:06 - 6:09is 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 - 6:29cos he looked like he was running, so
they put him into, like, movies -
6:29 - 6:32where he looks like he's chasing after
Tom Cruise, they put him into -
6:32 - 6:34all 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 who -
6:42 - 6:46was 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 quantitative 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, cos 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 either Hetain
or four 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 Internet is censored? -
7:41 - 7:45- I think we see a lot of creativity
because of censorship. -
7:45 - 7:48A lot of the talks this week were
talking about how creativity -
7:48 - 7:50and innovation come out of necessity.
-
7:50 - 7:53And, so, China has two things... 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 - 8:09So, you have these two factors.
A 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 - 8:28One was someone had replaced
the tanks with a kitten -
8:28 - 8:30looking 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 because -
8:36 - 8:40there's a big rubber duck floating around
in Hong Kong, an 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
creativity limited. -
9:05 - 9:08Part of my talk is that there's actually
a lot of really similar creativity -
9:08 - 9:10around the world, but, in China,
you DO have this element -
9:10 - 9:16of censorship that 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 grew up, I 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 meme
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 - 10:21Uganda's pounced on this. They started
saying, "Uganda is not Spain." -
10:21 - 10:24And they started posting statistics
about how Uganda's economy is rising, -
10:24 - 10:25all these kinds of issues.
-
10:25 - 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 - 10:52merged with the Internet,
or do you have -
10:52 - 10:58any pre-Internet samples of remixing,
for example picture of leaders, -
10:58 - 11:00and 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 - 11:19But I was just talking with someone,
since we're in the UK, this is appropriate, -
11:19 - 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- Actually, 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 a humour, -
12:18 - 12:22it would be really nice
to sever 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 remember -
12:37 - 12:40the Hillary Clinton texting meme
that popped up? -
12:40 - 12:44That wasn't a political commentary.
It was just her looking really bad-ass. -
12:44 - 12:46She was wearing sunglasses
and texting. -
12:46 - 12:48And there are all kinds of joke texts
coming from her -
12:48 - 12:50about how cool she was.
-
12:50 - 12:54And her Twitter account, 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
the 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 - 13:17- We're going to have to wrap it,
-
13:18 - 13:19we have to head back
into session. -
13:19 - 13:22Thank you, An Xiao Mina, and thank
you, Hetain Patel, for joining us. -
13:22 - 13:24And thank you, all the translators.
Thank you very much.
- 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 | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for TED Global 2013 Found in Translation An Xaio Mina |