Bingfeng Teahouse

My hat off for To Daai Tou Laam Tom, one of my must-read bloggers. I'm glad that someone eventually breaks the code of silence and speaks the truth about ESWN.

>>I think ESWN has gotten something of a "free pass" from China bloggers and the western press. Personally, I'm over him, his selective news, and his colossal ego.

Couldn't agree more.

Jeffrey, I realy appreciate that feedback. I am beginning to get suspicious. In this post, a very talented blogger writes,

The only hero of the story is the indefatigable Roland Soong, author of the EastSouthWestNorth weblog, who makes it his mission to translate a river of material from the Chinese language press (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese) into English every day. Having worked for a while as a short-notice translator, I can't begin to understand how he can find the time and energy to translate so much material, let alone provide context and very balanced commentary, but there it is. For anyone who wants to learn more about online culture in China without speaking the language his blog is a superb resource.

Could it be that this is exactly what our hero wanted to hear, and that he engineered it? Now, I'm not saying that as a fact, I'm just askin'....

By the way, the blogspot ban was lifted several weeks ago, so readers in China have had free access to his site - many of them were writing very angry comments there until it was closed.

Could it be that this is exactly what our hero wanted to hear

Our hero has never been subtle about how much he likes to be quoted or mentioned elsewhere. It seems to me that self-gratification IS indeed the main theme of the blog ... apart from "Sex in the City" of course.

Now that makes me wonder, how can he have so much time reading blogs, translating, making comments, maintaining a blog and, on top of that, keeping tap of his trophies??

so now you guys start to complain that Roland translated the whole thing that somehow makes you embarrassed?

^-^

Hi Bingfeng - it's been a long time.

I am certainly jealous of ESWN's translation capabilities. If you search this blog, you will see I have praised him multiple times, often referring to him as the best site on China.

However, over the past two years I have definitely noticed a trend on his site. Up at the top, the links to his articles of choice often direct readers to posts of little significance but with one common thread - they heap praise on Roland. He always seems to be trying to hype himself. Everytime he's mentioned in the news, he lets you know it. I have been interviewed by two radio stations and mentioned in more than one newspaper article, but I never talked about that (until now) - who cares? It's okay to pat yourself on the back sometimes, but it's become a daily routine, and a boring one.

So no, jealousy isn't the thing. I'd say it's more irritation at Roland seeing himself as the man for whom the world's foreign correspondents must snap to attention. Go read Tom's post and see the quotes, right out of Roland's mouth. There's also his trend to nearly always rally to the Party's side, as witnessed in his support of Yahoo after the arrest of Shi Tao (and many, many other cases). Still, I make him my first stop everyday because I appreciate his translations even if his constant self-aggrandizement makes me moan. After this episode, however, I will be reading him with a much larger grain of salt than before. After a lot of resistance, I am coming around to Michael Turton's and Tom's side of the table. This whole brouhaha seems to have been rigged. And one man seems to have done the rigging. Or at least that's how it seems to me at the moment.

as i know, Roland did all the service for free, if public consent makes him happy and he wants to show off, so what? if he plans to gain something from his blog in the future, i don't think any of us has the right to complain, i mean, you can suggest him to remove or downplay the links, but he has the right to do anythig in his blog, doesn't he?

what do you feel with your everywhere google adsense? what do you feel if somebody complain that and lower the credibility of your blog? does it make sense?

a little more respect and tolerance. that's it

""There's also his trend to nearly always rally to the Party's side, as witnessed in his support of Yahoo after the arrest of Shi Tao (and many, many other cases).""

well, i don't think roland "always rally to the party's side", perhaps that's only possible in the imaginations of people who "always rally to the anti-ccp side"

humans are teh breed of their cuture and education, and in this regard, roland should be more balanced than you and me

"Nearly always" - big difference. Occasionally he is very critical of the party.

Look, if you want to draw conclusions about my google ads or whatever, go ahead, it's a free country (well, where i am, anyway). This criticism against eswn is not random or fueled by envy. I'vebeen hearing it from many quarters for a very long time. I was reluctant to join in, especially because on some levels I admire Roland tremendously and have enjoyed sharing emails with him. But when someone is cast as the one source all the foreign correspondents go to for their Chinese news, and that one source shows a disturbing trend to sensationalize (see Michael Turton's blog for copious examples) and to lobby for his pet causes, we all need to wake up to the fact that he's not just translating, he is advocating, and his repeated claims to objectivity do not hold up.

"advocating"? who is not "advocating"? i see western media are much more "advocating" than ESWN when it comes to report china affairs

if foreign correspondents are not happy with the limitations of ESWN, learn mandarin themselves.

Bingfeng, did you read Tom's post? I was making a specific reference to Roland's insistence on his objevctivity, as emphasized in Tom's post. I love to advocate - all I ever do is advocate. I never say I am objective. I try to be fair and I try to be objective, but I definitely am here to advocate my point of view. I am not here peddling translations that I assure readers time and again reflect my objectivity.

For more education on this topic, Bingfeng, be sure to read this post as well.

this is very interesting, while many of you expect ESWN to expose the dark sides of mainland china (or ccp, in your language), some one whines for ESWN exposes the dark sides of taiwan's democracy

i am confused

Here's another one bingfeng, that might perhaps help you see where readers are coming from. It starts:

ESWN, which often appears jealous of Taiwan's freedom and prosperity, and does not appear to like Taiwan very much at all, published an appalling attack on our cozy little island today, in the form of a commentary and article from a local journal. The article ESWN liked so much appeared in Chinese in The Journalist, a local business journal.

In its haste to say anything bad it possibly can about Taiwan, ESWN overlooked critical background that may help readers understand who and what are talking. The Journalist has quite a rep around Taiwan for printing any old scurrilous rumor. For example, it was that rag that circulated a rumor saying that Annette Lu, the Veep, was telling everyone Chen Shui-bian was having an affair with another DPP legislator. The Journalist has long thrived on an anti-government stance, opposing whoever is in power. One should not confuse being anti-government with being right.

Read the rest - if you really want to understand. But unfortunately I don't think you really do want to understand. You'll come back with a snarky one-liner the way you usually do.

I thought about this long and hard today. I like Roland. But I felt like i had a revelation today. I went back and read some of the glowing reports about him written by my friends (who I hope won't hold this against me) and I realized just how much he has journalists and bloggers eating out of his hand. Has he demonstrated that he really deserves this stature? Tell me Bingfeng, since you are in Shanghai, is there really a witch hunt going on, an Internet lynch mob, for the Sex and Shanghai blogger? Or was the story blown out of proportion by eswn (and then by me and other bloggers who take - took? - what Roland writes at face value)?

richard, don't you find the piece of quote so familiar, if you replace "taiwan" with "china", replace "freedom and prosperity" with "growth", replace "ESWN" with "western media" .......

and i find the whole basis of your arguement is very fragile, people go to read ESWN for MAINLAND CHINA NEWS, not taiwan news, and you told me that foreign correspondents should not rely on ESWN as their CHINA news sources because ESWN is very imbalanced in reporting taiwan?

note from bingfeng: i won't quote more from peking duck, the following ice cream story sums up the whole debate pretty well, thanks

You know the story about the guy who stands on a street corner offering people free ice cream?

After he has been doing it for some time, people get really used to free ice cream. And then they start getting annoyed -- "Man, you only ever have chocolate ice cream, I want some f***ing pistachio!"

That is what you guys sound like bitching about ESWN.

Has he ever claimed to be an objective news source? No. Did he ever promise you anything that de did not deliver? No.

Worse than the bitching about ESWN content are the baseless insinuations from this Ivan person suggesting that Bingfeng and ESWN are paid Party shills?

Well Ivan, if you are going to make accusations like that, why are you too scared to use your real name? You are not too different from a BBS nationalist: all fire and fury, from the anonymous safety of your keyboard.

Get a life man.