Pod Save the World - Dissident at the Doorstep Episode 7: Lost And Found In Translation

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

With a new position at the Catholic University of America and funding from a rightwing think tank, Guangcheng takes on a new challenge: strengthening his English. We examine why this became such a top priority for Guangcheng and his patrons, what it means to traverse borders and negotiate between languages, and how Guangcheng’s political beliefs are translated by different audiences in a country that elected Donald Trump. 

If you like Dissident at the Doorstep and want ad-free episodes and exclusive content from the show, join Friends of the Pod, Crooked's new subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. We come together tonight to imagine a future, determined by the shining light of our hopes and values and faith. It was August 26, 2020. I had barely left my studio apartment in Chicago for over six. six months. That evening, I tuned in to the Republican National Convention as it was live-streamed on YouTube. Since moving to the U.S. in 2009, I had watched all the national conventions of both political parties. To me, observing the raucous convention floors was witnessing democracy in action. However, I considered skipping them this time. It was months into a global pandemic.

Trump had been president for three and a half years. Both the political landscape and our daily lives had become unrecognizable. But in the end, I decided to watch them. I guess I felt nostalgic, and more importantly, I realized the stakes. After November, this country might no longer be a democracy. This thought crossed my mind like lightning. For a moment, I found it hard to breathe. I felt obligated to keep it.

I must bear witness, I told myself. Then, on the third night of the Republican National Convention, an unexpected speaker took the stage. Greetings. My name is Chen Guangchen. Standing up to tyranny is not easy. I know. In a polished, nearly three-minute address, Guang chung called the Chinese Communist Party an enemy of humanity and praised President Trump for leading the fight against

this evil regime. Standing up to fight and fairness isn't easy. I know. So does President Trump but he has showing the courage to weed that fight.

Guangcheng's right-wing politics did not really surprise me, but hearing him rally for a man who has caused so much harm to women, immigrants, and people of color, all of which I am, still felt like a betrayal. On social media, reactions to Guangcheng's speech were understandably mixed, but one detail caught my attention. Many from the overseas Chinese community were fixated not so much on what Guangcheng said, but on how he said it. One Twitter user said, hearing Guangcheng

enunciated the syllables was so excruciating, they wished they could read the speech for him. Others defended Guangcheng, saying that he spoke well under the circumstances, and his accent did not impede comprehension. The comments felt personal. In my own journey to a foreign ton, which I'm using to speak to you now, I've also received a lot of unsolicited feedback about my English. I reflect on the feedback often as I reckon with my relationships with the two languages I speak, the countries they represent, and my place in them. To speak and speak freely, to speak and be heard. These are such humble goals, but that's Guangcheng story and that of my own illuminate. They can also be the most difficult tasks. Things slip in translation. Even within the same language,

two people can prescribe different meanings to the exact same word. I'm Yang Yang Cheng. And I'm Colin Jones, and this is episode seven of dissident at the doorstep. Since Guangcheng first stepped off the plane in his new home in the U.S., his English ability, or lack thereof, has been a recurring concern for his American benefactors. Maddie Bikin set up English classes for Guangcheng and his wife, Wei Jing, shortly after their arrival. But that language training got buried in a flurry of other lessons.

and activities. Besides, during Guangcheng's year at NYU, there were always fluent Chinese speakers, like Maddie, Jerry Cohen, or other Chinese students who were around to talk to or help with translation. By the time Guangcheng left NYU, his English ability was still very limited. Guangcheng understood the restraints it placed on his daily life, as well as on his work. If you want to fit into American society, if you do not improve your English, you can barely take a single step. When I was in China, I did not even have English textbooks at school.

Even though we had English classes, they were just symbolic, to be honest. The teacher who taught English barely knew English himself. Just like the old Chinese saying goes, if the teacher is not very bright, the disciples are destined to be clumsy. But at that time, I had a clear feeling that if I wanted to have a better future,

if I wanted to advance to a higher level, not knowing English would definitely be a fatal constraint. The language barrier Guangchung faced is a familiar predicament for Chinese dissidents in exile. Cut off from China and dropped into societies where they do not speak the common tongue. These activists are often effectively silenced. When Guangchung first arrived at the Witherspoon Institute, teaching them English became a top priority. Unlike Jerry and Maddie, Robert George and Bill Saunders cannot speak Chinese. Bill made note of this fact the first night we met, when our producer Maria pulled him aside for a quick interview at the event celebrating the

10th anniversary of Guangcheng's arrival in the U.S. Actually, when Guangchung and Bill would you have a moment to speak to us? And not if you need Chinese. Oh. Actually, when Guangchung and Bill first started working together at Catholic University, they could hardly understand each other. When I met him four years ago, his English was very, very rudimentary,

just little bits and pieces. I mean, I had a hard time. I couldn't have even had this kind of discussion with it. The Witherspoon Institute found a professional English teacher for Guangchung. The instructor was based in Kansas and conducted lessons over Skype. When Bill arrived at Catholic, he also took it upon himself to teach Guangcheng English. He and Guangcheng talk at length every week, over the phone or in person, without a translator. I don't know that much about learning languages, but it must kind of speed up.

And he's kind of gotten over hurdles where he seems to be going more quickly. Is there, do you have to make special accommodations because of his blindness? You mean there's not a textbook or, or? Yeah, no, well, the only textbook he has is me. It has been years since Bill and Guangcheng have been doing this. And you basically can't overstate how important these English lessons are in their relationship. His English is so much better. We work very hard on his English.

His English. Get it into English. In English, spoke English. Any English speaks English. But his English is English. we'd speak in English, improving his English. If we can speak English, more than English comes out, his English is better than hers.

For Bill, the goal is not just to talk with Guangcheng, but for Guangcheng to talk directly to the American people. He has such a strong, important story, and so we want to get it into English so Americans can understand him because he gets it in Chinese a lot, you know, through voice of Asia or different programs, but we wanted to get it out in English. We've been working really hard to do it, and he's gotten pretty good.

Along the way, it was clear to me that all this time spent working on Guangcheng's English has also brought Bill and Guangcheng quite close. When Guangcheng spoke that night at his 10-year anniversary, Bill stood next to him the whole time, and the way they interacted physically, with Bill helping Guangcheng to and from the podium and casually offering an arm for assistance. I could see real familiarity. Well, it's hard not to like him. He's just got a wonderful personality.

It's interesting combination because he is the most iron will and determination of anybody I've ever met. There's no way like you could get him to say something that he doesn't believe or something that he doesn't think is true. He's just, I mean, he would rather die. But you combine that with he's got a nice sense of humor and, you know, he loves life. He's not a, you know, kind of a sourpuss. It's hard for people not to like him. And the more he can speak English, the more his personality comes out,

and the more people do like him. The people Bill has in mind are, of course, those who do not know Chinese, like Bill himself. That Bill does not speak Chinese led to his tense moment during our first interview with Guangcheng. Bill insisted on being present, and he sat at the end of the table while Guangcheng, Colin and I, conversed in Mandarin.

About an hour into the interview, Bill interrupted us to ask how much more time we would need. So I asked Guangcheng what his availability was in case Bill wanted to leave early. Don't talk to him in Chinese if it hasn't. Okay, yeah. Don't talk to him in Chinese when this has something to do with me, Bill said. I understand the wish to know what others are saying about you. But Guangcheng's schedule did not have to concern Bill. At least that's how I thought at the time.

I saw Bill's presence at the interview as a form of tacit control. And, as a fellow Chinese person, I felt protective over Guangcheng. Speaking in Chinese, a language Bill does not know to me was also a way to reclaim the space. Bill's comment felt like an intrusion. When I went through the interviews Colin and Ali conducted with Guangcheng's white American colleagues, I heard echoes of the same comments Guangcheng had received from the overseas Chinese community after his RNC speech. Concerns about his English proficiency, and in particular, his accent. Robert George of the Witherspoon Institute and Princeton University had this to say.

I remember early on one of the items of discussion is how do we find the best language tutoring for him. And also how do we find accent reduction work? Often those are two. separate things. There's the language learning, and then there's the accent reduction. But obviously, that was not a substantive issue having to do with human rights. Each time I listen to this tape, I feel the sting of the phrase, accent reduction. What is it that must be reduced, whittled away, preferably erased? Robert told us the term came from the English tutor Witherspoon hired to help Guangchon, and that the tutor specialized in, quote, accent reduction.

In an email, Robert wrote, quote, I took it to mean work Guangcheng was doing to make sure more people could understand what he was saying. If it means something else or something in addition to that, I'm not aware of it. End quote. I speak English with an accent, and it took me a long time to make peace with it. I started learning English in fourth grade. The following year, I lived briefly in San Diego when my father was a visiting scientist at UCSD.

He later told me that my report card at the end of the spring semester read, Very Limited English. My parents and I moved back to China that summer, and I started middle school. A few months later, my father went to sleep one night and never woke up. I was 10 years old. He left behind a small stack of cassette tapes. He had been using them to learn English. Released by commercial publishers in China,

the tapes were labeled the most famous speeches in English language. In the long weeks and months ahead, I listened to them every day until words emerged out of sounds and carried meaning. So first of all, let me assert my firm belief. And so, my fellow America, Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you do. These iconic words uttered in the darkest hours of the past century

became an incantation during a most difficult time in my youth. Not long after, I noticed that I would dream in English. It's odd. I was nowhere near fluent. I think my subconscious clung to the alien letters because my mother does not speak them. through English my adolescent self found a fugitive space, safe from my mother's searing wrath.

I did not know at the time that English also offered more space for political expression in China against state censorship, but my adopted tan was already my first language of freedom. At age 12, I took part in my first English public speaking competition. It was the only extracurricular activity my mother allowed. She wanted her age of her. introverted daughter to grasp some social skills. She also wished for me to gain fluency in the language she herself never had a chance to learn. For the next few years, speaking English on

stage to a live audience and a panel of judges was a regular part of my life. Number 17, Cheng Yang Yang from Anhui. I believe my ability and efforts will be up to the challenge. Thank you. From the judges and parents of other contestants, I started getting feedback that had little to do with my ability to express myself in English. I needed better clothes. My style was too masculine. My voice was too shrill.

And time and again, I was told that my English did not sound authentic. I must shake off my accent if I wanted to win at the national level. There were summer camps that promised to give you, quote, authentic American accent in seven to ten days. But the price tag was prohibited for my family. Besides, I had no idea what an authentic American accent meant. In a species I had memorized by heart, President Kennedy and Dr. King, both authentically American, sounded very different. The last time I took part in an English-speaking competition was in the fall of 2006, as a college software. more. The university assigned an American teacher to tutor the two of us who advanced to the

regional final. One evening, the other contestant asked our tutor a question. If you close your eyes and hear me speak, can you tell that I grew up in China? The white woman hesitated. Well, a bit, she said, but only a bit. The disappointment on my schoolmate's face is etched into my memory, alongside the peculiar way he prefaced the question, if you close your eyes. It's only years later after I had moved to the U.S. that I realized why this phrasing bothered me. The accent is a proxy for race when English is coded with whiteness. Guangcheng is not white and can never be white, but his Chineseness, packaged and tamed to the tastes of predominantly white audiences, like those at the R&C Convention Hall or human rights

scholars, also serves a crucial function. His ethnicity offers a token of authenticity to his views on China, further validated by his dissident status. Bill said he wants Guangcheng to speak English so that he can get his personality and message across to Americans. When I ask Guangcheng about what he wants to communicate to Americans. He said his mission is to defend human rights. He learns about abuses taking place in China through social media channels and tries to raise awareness to an American audience.

In his words, he wants to alert the Americans to the evils of the Chinese regime and to stop the policies of appeasement. On this front, his goal and bills are aligned. Why is Guangcheng speaking? Who is he speaking to? All of us on this podcast have been wondering these questions of purpose and audience since the beginning of our project. In telling Guangcheng's story, we're also engaging in an act of translation and mediation.

How do we make sure we are doing the topic justice? That's coming up after the break. At the beginning of our first interview, I explained to Guangcheng that we're doing the topic justice. would talk in Chinese, but the final program would be in English. No problem, no problem. It's actually better to promote this story in English. It's quite nice to let more Westerners know about this. Actually, I feel Westerners, oh well, how should I put this?

It's too much to talk about now. Anyway, no problem at all. Just as Guangcheng held his ton about whatever observation he was going to make about Westerners. Telling this story English comes with complications. We wanted Guangcheng to speak in Mandarin as his most natural self, where he is unburdened by the need for translation, so we could hear fully his thoughts and ideas. But the inevitable trade-off is that we had to lose part of Guangcheng's voice, literally. We had to cut off his recordings and replace him with someone else, the audio journalist Richard Yeh.

I mean, there's so much nuances in the way really everyone speaks, but Chen is an especially dynamic speaker, I think. This is Richard speaking as himself. At the end of our last recording session with him, we talked a bit about enacting someone else's words. I looked him up on YouTube. I watched a few of his videos, mostly in English, actually. At the same time, I was trying to not project what he might be thinking, who he think he might be talking to, but really just focus on the tape itself.

Richard grew up in Taiwan before emigrating to the U.S. in his teens. Mandarin is his first language. For all of Guangcheng's interview tapes that we used in the show, Richard and I edited the translations together. We worked from a transcript, and then we listened to the original recording. In many instances, hearing Guangcheng's voice prompt us to tweak the English translation to capture not just the literal text, but also the emotions behind it. Sometimes Richard and I disagreed, a reminder of how personal language is. Once, we struggled to describe the boucade of leaves that Guangcheng's daughter made for him, the one he kept throughout his time in prison.

The name of the tree in Chinese is full. a hybrid between an oriental plane tree and a sycamore. I did not think the tree needed translation, but in the end we used both words, the Chinese name Fatong and the name of its American relative, the sycamore. The name of a tree is a small detail, but it is indicative of a bigger question. How much a minoritized speaker needs to make themselves legible to a majority audience? For Richard, life is a series of translations. In my head, I'm constantly code switching between Mandarin, my native tongue, and English, which I picked up as a 10-year-old.

I do translate myself a lot. And I often in daily conversation, struggle to find the most fitting words I want to say in each language, depending on my audience. Sometimes a better way to say that comes to me after the fat. And I say, damn it, I have to remember that for the next time this comes up, I know exactly what to say. As a New Yorker, I don't feel like I have to perfect my English. I also don't feel like my, I have to apologize for my less than perfect Mandarin. I'm quite happy with the way I have a, you know, I have a foot in both worlds there.

Richard and I are from different generations and grew up in different linguistic environments. When we were translating Guangcheng from Chinese into English, we were also translating our own experiences and our relationships with both languages into our interpretations of Guangcheng. Translation, like migration, is never simply about changing places. It's a process of coping with loss and reinventing the self. marked by memories from the native land. This is what I have hoped to achieve in translating Guangcheng,

that the translation is not just a destination, it also preserves the journey, that is in English but conveys a distinct Chinese voice. But each journey is personal, where the most personal remains untranslatable. After the break, where Guangcheng's journey took him next? One of the small ironies of Guangchung's endorsement of Trump was that the person and the version of the Republican Party

he threw his support behind was not what some of his early conservative backers would have hoped for. In the spring of 2016, Robert George issued a public statement, calling on fellow Catholics and all men and women of goodwill to reject Trump. In that statement, Robert called Trump manifestly unfit to be president and wrote that a Trump administration promised only the further

degradation of our politics and our culture. So we asked Robert how he felt seeing Guangcheng at the 2020 RNC. Oh, I don't have any problem with people disagreeing about, with me about politics. I mean, gosh, I teach at Princeton University and I'm a conservative. You can imagine I have to spend a lot of time with people who disagree with me about. But were you surprised to see him on that stage? No, he thinks for himself. I took this exchange as a pretty tidy encapsulation.

of what has happened to the Republican Party in the wake of Trump. In early 2016, while the presidential election was still underway, Robert certainly wasn't alone in his announcements of Trump. During the primaries, Ted Cruz called Trump a serial philanderer and an amoral pathological liar before he ultimately gave Trump his endorsement that September. J.D. Vance wrote that Trump debased our entire political culture. Then, in 2022, he basically groveled for Trump's endorsement in the Ohio Senate race. Robert hasn't gone this far, although for a time he considered chairing a human

rights commission for Trump State Department. But he, like many other Republicans, has figured out that while they may detest Trump himself, they need to find a way to accommodate themselves to Trumpism. That is, if they wish to have any influence at all in today's GOP. For Guangcheng, it is different. His support for Trump isn't just a reluctant compromise. He is drawn to Trump, whose appease. is not uncommon among first-generation immigrants from authoritarian countries like China. Trump markets himself as an outside challenger to establish in power, the brash billionaire from New York,

who has little regard for decorum and does not speak in the polished language of political elites, claims to be a voice for those aggrieved and neglected in the margins. With Trump's tough rhetoric on China, people like Guangcheng also see him as a, powerful ally in their fight against Beijing. And in the weeks after the 2020 election, Guangcheng would take his support for Trump up a notch, and even further away from Robert and his colleagues at Catholic.

After the votes had been tallied in the networks finally announced Joe Biden as the winner, Guangcheng latched on to the idea that a massive fraud had taken place. There was tremendous cheating here. Boxes were brought in. The mail-in vote is a disaster. He also shared a video from Newsmax, suggesting that the vote had been hacked.

Folks, when it comes to election security and the integrity of the vote, you are being lied to. The biggest lie of all is that somehow our state's voting systems are not connected to the internet. We hear them say this all the time. For airing stories like this, Newsmax is currently subject to a defamation suit by the Voting Technology Company Smartmatic. Guangchung gave these ideas his personal endorsement in an interview with Vision

Times, a Chinese-language newspaper based in Australia. In that interview, he spoke about a massive number of illegitimate votes and wondered aloud if the CCP hadn't been involved in some fashion or another. Through all this, Guangcheng was fixated on the idea that the American press was biased against Trump. In a video he posted on Twitter, he said he first learned about this bias during his acrimonious exit from NYU in 2013. Here, Guangcheng says that the New York Times favored NYU and the U.S. government in its reporting. even though it knew other information favorable to Guangcheng's claims.

In December 2020, when thousands of Trump supporters descended on Washington, D.C., for an early stop-the-steel rally, Guangcheng joined them. In this video, which he also posted to Twitter, you could see Guangcheng standing in Freedom Plaza, surrounded by people waving American flags. In the background, there's a handmade sign that says, do not ever concede. It's daytime in the video.

By the end of that night, four people had been stabbed, and eight D.C. police were injured in clashes with the protesters. About a month later, on January 6, 2021, Guangcheng joined the crowds once again. In this video, which I first saw on the day he posted it, almost in real time, Guangcheng stands under gray skies with a much larger crowd, presumably somewhere near the White House. Guangcheng posted this video at 12.16 p.m. So by then, Trump had already taken the stage for a 70-minute adjutant. dress. Trump told the crowd, you will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have,

and we can't let that happen. By 106 p.m., 50 minutes after Guangcheng posted his video, protesters, including members of the proud boys and other right-wing extremists, had smashed through the first police lines around the Capitol. Things got violent from that point on. In our interview, Guangcheng played down his belief that the election was illegitimate. Instead, he made it sound like he joined the protesters that day out of curiosity. I wanted to hear what they thought about the issue. I also wanted to compare what I saw at the scene with what the media reported, to understand what the differences were.

According to Guangcheng, his impression of the protests was mostly orderly and peaceful. Of course, I also saw it. Once there was some media, I think it was NBC or CNN, I forget. they were holding a video camera outside the Supreme Court. And then a few protesters rushed over with a loudspeaker, they shouted, fake news. The media had to dodge them in frustration. This was the more intense scene I saw.

In fact, under those circumstances, overall, I felt it was very, very peaceful. People were mostly lining up to give speeches. It was so cold, and they were just standing there, talking, discussing the issue, that the media reports were distorted, and certain facts were omitted, and this was unacceptable, and so on. Of course, they also called for people

to abandon the fake news media, to find out the truth, to demand public information, and so on. Anyway, when I was there, I didn't think there was any problem at all. Guangcheng says it was so cold he decided to leave early, adding that it was a pity

he never made it near the Capitol. Still, at 253 p.m. that day, long after things had gotten very violent, Guangcheng seems to have been following the events closely enough to retweet a video from a Chinese American man who had broken into the Capitol building. We've already taken a government. We've got to join the country.

With the people, great with the people. Two weeks later, Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States. A few months after this, Guangcheng took an oath of his own. He became a U.S. citizen. Included in that oath is the absolute renunciation of, quote, allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, where one used to be a subject or a citizen. In other words, to naturalize as a U.S. citizen demands a transference of allegiance.

To assume a new American identity, one must abandon the old one. It's a leap of faith not unlike boys. a one-way flight out of one's homeland. But it's always been tough to interpret Guangcheng's actions. So during our last interview with Guangcheng, I asked him about this occasion. Oh, you're going to be a U.S. Uh, yeah, I think is, right? Uh, yeah, I think is, I've got a manned a year.

Cheng said he had forgotten which year it was that he became a naturalized citizen. The pandemic has warped at a, everyone's sense of time. But I was still surprised by Guangcheng's understated response. I had in mind the sight of him standing on stage at the RNC in front of a dazzling role of stars and stripes. How could someone like that forget which year it was he officially became American? During our interview with Bob Fu in Texas, Bob said, if war broke out between the United States and China, as a U.S. citizen, he would take one of the United States. of his AR-15s and fight for the Americans. I wondered what Guangcheng would do in the same situation.

Instead of a clear-cut answer, like Bob's, Guangchang gave a long-winded response, that war is unlikely and the Chinese Communist Party cannot represent the Chinese people. The Chinese government, notably, does not recognize dual citizenship. I asked Guang chung what being Chinese means to him, now that he's a U.S. citizen. I don't think this needs my definition. It's just a fact. Then what word do you use? That you're trying to define it is in itself a problem. Why define it?

Do you still consider yourself Chinese? Then what is your concept? Then what is your concept of China? Yeah, that, that's, right, that's, so you're there actually a thing in the country. Is it what?

Exactly. There is still a definition. So what is your definition of China? You can't give me this idea. I'm no way to answer you this question. So if you cannot give me a definition, I cannot answer your question.

But what is your own definition of China? For example, you can take a country, and then you can't even? For example, you can define China for yourself and then identify as a Chinese person, right?

I think this is a bit strange if we have to say it like that. How should we say it? If by Chinese you mean someone from the People's Republic of China, I actually don't think it has that kind of authority. I felt embarrassed for being pushy and pedantic, for imposing a question that has long troubled me on Guangcheng. I think the difficulty in finding an answer is also due to a lack of vocabulary.

In English, a multitude of identities is collapsed into a single word, Chinese. It can refer to anything from citizenship to ethnicity, from cultural heritage to linguistic belonging. But in the Chinese language, there are several words for China. The most commonly used, the Middle Kingdom, contains the character, Guo, nation-state. To identify as

Zhong Guoan, a person from China, is also to recognize the authority of the ruling government. In our conversations, Guangcheng used another word for China, Hua Xia, where recognition of political authority is replaced by unabashed cultural pride. China as Huaia is a glorious ancient civilization

spanning over four millennia, originating from the mythical First Dynasty, Xia. Each of these words emphasizes a different source of Chineseness, citizenship, culture, history. They're all marked by the legacy of empires. To identify as Chinese is to inherit this legacy and to wrestle with its many layers. Ultimately, Guangcheng said his Chineseness is a fact that needs no definition.

I think the fact of the matter is, we lived on that land for decades, right? The culture from that land, all kinds of sentiment and feelings for that land. It runs in the blood. There's no doubt about it. In front of Guangcheng and me, there is a China-sized hole

that all the words in the world cannot fill. We do not even have the vocabulary to describe its shape. It's difficult for me to place this image of Guangcheng, who seems so disinterested in defining himself, into the fervid crowd on January 6th, or even into the red, white, and blue version of himself on the R&C stage. Guangcheng seems more comfortable presenting certain parts of his identity than others.

As we get to the end of this story, we want to piece them all together to find out. the full picture. That's next time on Dissident at the Doorstep. Dissident at the Doorstep is an original podcast from Crooked Media. Our hosts are Alison Clayman, Colin Jones, and me, Yang Yang Cheng. From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Tommy Vitor, Sarah Geismer, and Katie Long, with special thanks to Marinoff and Alison Fosetta.

Our senior producers are Maria Byrne and Meg Kramer. Moral Walls is our story editor. Our producer is Wu Dan Yan. Our associate producers are Buen-Wan and Sydney Rap. Translation by Valerie C with additional translations by me, Yang Yang Cheng and Richard Ye. Voiceovers by Richard Ye. Our fact checker is Tamika Adams.

Sound design and mixing by Hannes Brown. Original score by Elon Isakov. And our podcast art is by John Lee.