Hofan has sent me a question about the use of language: Chinese/English/Bilingual.
Actually we have talked about this in our previous meetings. Somehow no conclusion has been come up.
And what I write in the draft guideline in previous post here is "Chinese".
WE got a variation here.
Let me explain the reason I suggest "Chinese". As I have talked to a publisher from Commerical Press (who is Eugenia Lo, also a LPC alumni) and we think that we should somehow fit our readers, i.e. local people.
Well, it is a hard decision (not to have English articles) as we also want to let many cannot-read-Chinese alumni to share the book.
However, it is hard for any bookstores in Hong Kong to put a bilingual book on their bookshelf. It is quite ironic - because of this problem. But somehow it is the norm.
Publishing book nowadays are very easy. Therefore bookshops like Page One or Commercial Press can be very selective on what to put on shelf - in order to maximize their profit.
Engenia also suggests that we can publish our book by "self-finance" mode (自資出版). Or we can only target on "insiders" only, i.e. UWCers, LPCers and parents. But this will neglect the public and sponsors. Hence we have come up with the objectives in the first meeting that we would like to let them know more about UWCs through this book.
Hence I suggest it to be in Chinese only.
Would like to hear from your comments, especially if you can consult someone who is also in the publishing field.
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4 comments:
This is James again.
We have had a nice dinner yesterday and our group has come to the conclusion about the use of language of our book.
In respond to the need of readers and book disturbutors, we agree to have the book in Chinese.
We are sorry for those who wish to write in English. Please find help for those who can translate. If you find problems about this, please let our committee know. We will try our best to help.
We will consider to have another book in English if resources allow. However, we shall focus on the current book at the moment.
Thanks.
Foremost, thanks a lot for organizing the book.
Just one comment, about the use of language. We (a table of 98 graduates) had a talk at dinner on 4th July and wonder why we would pick Chinese instead of using 1) English or 2) bilingual.
The reasons why we have such though are:
1. By using Chinese, we are excluding half of our outstanding alumni.
2. Please also bear in mind that UWC is about international understanding, and obviously, using Chinese alone will hardly reflect such idea.
3. Most of the parents of UWC graduates of potential UWCers read English.
4. If the purpose for this book is to do fund raising, having a bilingual version (not necessarily direct translation, but can have one section for Chinese, one for English or even small pieces in different languages, that's called UWC) will increase the market.
5. We are not sure the sponsorship got for this project. If UWC GO is giving sponsorship, it would be more appropriate to use bilingual as this is the official way in both HK and UWC.
6. We understand about the language section in the bookstore concern. Is it a super big problem? Would there be solutions to solve that? Would the expanded market (by covering both language speakers) justified the "bookstore problem"? UWCers are known for the flexibility. We would think that there would be bilingual books in the market right now and will be way to solve this. We would be more than happy to assist in sorting out this issue.
Final thing: We are all eager to help. However, knowing that the book will be published in Chinese only, the expected impact gained from this book doesn't seem to be able to justify the effort needed to be put in.
Again, thanks for organizing. It's absolutely wondering to have ppl raising up such activity. We apprecaite your efforts and would love to contribute ours.
Cheers,
Cass Chan and a bunch of 98 graduates
oopss...typos..I mean it's absolutely wonderful to have ppl organizing this fund raising project.
Keep it up!
Thanks again!
Cass & 98 graduates: Thanks for your ideas! I shall write in details in the coming posts~
Anonymous: Thanks for your words~ Please keep in visiting this blog again!
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