The Japanese language team at Global Voices (myself and my co-editor) were interviewed by Asahi’s new Komimi online news portal, a new site created to “introduce original articles and conversations from across the country”. Both of us are really happy with the way the article turned out in the end, so to “give a little back”, I dug up a couple things about Komimi and also, in the spirit of Global Voices, translated the article back into English.

An article posted just a couples weeks ago at Internet Watch explains that Asahi launched Komimi in December of last year with a publishing rate of 30-40 articles per week. In an industry that is known for being behind the game in almost everything new media-related, Asahi’s Komimi takes the bold step (for a traditional Japanese newspaper) of allowing readers to freely comment on articles as well as rate them from a selected set of responses: (^0^) interesting, (’-'*) I see, (@_@) more details, (^o^;) huh?, and (-_-;) disappointed.

I have to admit I’ve just skimmed other articles at Komimi, so it would be a bit premature to judge the site, but I can say at least that they did a very good job with our interview. Here’s my rough translation:

世界中のブログ翻訳プロジェクト進行中

Global blog translation project in progress

　アジアやアフリカ、中東などのブログを英語に翻訳し、世界に発信するプロジェクトが進んでいる。欧米メディアが伝えない地域の生の声に注目し、言葉の架け橋になっている。世界中から集まった英語記事の日本語への翻訳も手掛ける。（アサヒ・コム編集部）

A project to translate blogs from places such as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East into English and transmit them to the world is in progress, building bridges across languages and emphasizing the real voices from regions that media in the West do not report. A project to translate these English articles from across the world into Japanese is also underway. (Asahi.com editorial department)

　翻訳をしているのは「グローバルボイス」。ハーバード大学のロースクールにあるシンクタンクがプロジェクトの形で運営している。２００４年１２月に発足。世界の言語、地域ごとに１９人のエディターがおり、ボランティア約８０人が手伝う。現在、約３０の言語を翻訳している。普段の連絡はメーリングリストで行う。

Started in December, 2004, and operated as a project of a think tank at Harvard University’s Law School, this translation project is “Global Voices”. With 19 Regional and Language Editors from regions and languages across the world, and assisted by about 80 volunteers, the project currently translates roughly 30 different languages, communicating mainly through mailing lists.

　日本語のエディターは、翻訳業の鴇田（ときた）花子さん（２８）とカナダ人の大学院生で翻訳もするクリス・サルツバーグさん（３１）の２人。２００７年４月から活動している。週に２本、その時、話題になっていることについて書かれたブログの文章をまとめ、翻訳している。

The two Japanese language editors, active since April of 2007, are Hanako Tokita (28), who is working in the translation industry, and graduate student Chris Salzberg (31) from Canada, also working in translation. Twice per week they collect blogs entries [in Japanese] about whatever is being talked about and translate them [into English].

　最近では、沖縄の女子中学生暴行事件を取り上げた。現地の地方紙が号外を出したのに対し、その他の報道機関が大きく扱わなかったことを批判する文章を翻訳。米兵の多い土地で、被害者が取った行動にも過失がなかったか、と指摘する文章も載せた。

Recently, [one article] took up the case of the assault of a school girl in Okinawa, translating the criticism [of one blogger] that, in contrast to local newspapers which put out an extra edition, other news media had not taken up the story in any major way. There was also an entry questioning the actions taken by victims in areas [in Japan] where there are many American soldiers.

　サルツバーグさんは「異なる意見を載せることで、多くの視点があることを紹介したかった」と話す。特定の主張ではなく、ブログ上の現象を伝えることに徹しているという。

“By including differing opinions, I wanted to introduce the idea that there are many perspectives,” Salzberg explains. He says that he is not trying to convey any particular claim, but rather trying to transmit phenomena in blogs.

　鴇田さんは、ゲイやレズビアンであることを打ち明けた時、家族がどう対応したかをまとめた本「カミングアウト・レターズ」（太郎次郎社エディタス）への反応に注目。カミングアウトできない心境、「在日」との共通点などについて書かれたブログを翻訳した。

Tokita focused on reactions to the book “Coming Out Letters” (Tarojiro Publishing Company), which compiles ways in which parents handled [someone in their family] coming out to them as gay or lesbian. She translated blog entries about the common points between the feeling of not being able to come out [as gay or lesbian] and that of being “Zainichi”.

　「日本のブログには、自分の思想などについて、しっかり書き込まれたものがたくさんあることを伝えたかった」。背景には英語圏のメディアによる「日本のブログは数だけ多いがつまらないもの」という決めつけへの疑問があった。

“I wanted to show that, among Japanese blogs, there are many [entries] that express very carefully people’s personal thoughts.” She questions the premature assumption in the English-speaking world that: “There are a large number of Japanese blogs, but they are not interesting.”

　世界各地の言語から英語に訳された文章を、日本語にして紹介する活動にも力を入れる。

There is also an effort to translate the articles, themselves translated into English from the languages of regions across the world, into Japanese.

　アフリカの洪水難民の様子を伝える映像がユーチューブに投稿されたことや、イランの大学が男女を別々の教室にした際に学生が出した抗議の文章も動画交えて紹介してきた。

[This Japanese site] introduces [topics such as] the posting to YouTube of a movie conveying the conditions of refugees of floods in Africa, and an article, combined with video, expressing the opposition of students at a university in Iran to the separation of men and women into different classrooms.

　鴇田さんによると、政情が不安定な国ほど、ブログの中身がニュースの役割も果たす傾向があるという。昨年、ミャンマー（ビルマ）軍事政権に僧侶が抗議をした時には、ブロガーがすぐさま様子をアップ。グローバルボイスが翻訳した。

According to Tokita, the more politically unstable a country is, the more there is a tendency for the content of blogs to take on the role of a news source. Last year, when monks protested against the military regime in Myanmar (Burma), bloggers immediately uploaded [entries about] the situation. Global Voices translated them.

サルツバーグさんは「大手メディアの報道は世界を分かりやすく伝えてくれる。でも、ブログの文章は、世界がいかに複雑なのかを教えてくれます」と話している。

As Salzberg explains: “Mass media reporting conveys the world in a way that is easy to understand. Blogs teach us how complicated the world really is.”

The article really captures the ideas we tried to convey in the interview, which I like to think means that we expressed them reasonably well. But I have to say, I’m sure that I didn’t phrase that last sentence nearly as well in the actual interview as it came out in the final article, although the sentiment was the same. I guess that’s what being a good journalist is about.