The increase in inequality in China has leveled off in recent years and could be less severe than previously thought, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says, suggesting that Beijing is starting to make progress in tackling one of its biggest social problems. (WSJ)

The income gap has been one of the big problems with China’s high growth over the past couple of decades. In the past few years, it has seemed like during the boom times, the rich get richer (and the poor move upwards much more slowly), while during tough times like last year, the rich still do OK (and the poor take the hit). So the income gap has widened continuously.

The OECD data must come as great news by Hu Jintao and the PRC leadership. What will most likely be the big legacy of Hu will be his attempt at rebalancing the economy and managing growth. The driving econ policy of the past couple of years has moved away from growth-at-all-costs to a managed growth that takes things like the income gap and environmental issues into account.

Is this data evidence that the Hu and Wen rebalancing effort has been successful? Way too early to tell, but it definitely provides evidence to bolster their position.

Dan at CLB just posted on this subject with his experience dealing with Chinese, Russian and German interpreters. I can only speak to Chinese, but it is an issue I’ve dealt with personally, and through clients, for over ten years now.

If an interpreter is really good, he/she fades into the background. During a negotiation or business meeting, it’s like the interpreter wasn’t there at all. This is extremely difficult, but the really good ones can manage it.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a lawyer, their language skills notwithstanding, that is also an exceptional interpreter. Well, perhaps one or two exceptions. Generally, lawyers are too headstrong and knowledgeable to allow themselves to merely be a conduit, even junior associates translating for a partner.

Lawyers will almost always get involved in the conversation, interject their own opinion, or otherwise interrupt the flow. It’s incredibly annoying. Although I tell every single lawyer I’ve ever sent out to a client meeting, Board meeting, negotiation, etc. for the purposes of translating that they should not be an active participant in the discussion unless absolutely necessary, they almost always do so.

Nothing gets a client more pissed off than when their translator gets into a five minute discussion with the opposing party in a negotiation and fails to let the client know what’s going on. Moreover, when both the opposing party and the translator are Chinese nationals and the client is a foreigner, they almost always think that something untoward is going on and that they are somehow conspiring against the poor foreigner. Silly, perhaps, but is happens very often.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t love, and prefer, working with an interpreter who not only knows the language very well, but can walk the line between giving valuable advice to the client on the one hand and being as unobtrusive as possible on the other — I just don’t see those kinds of skills that often.

In fact, the more intelligent an interpreter is and the more experience they have with business or law, the more likely they are to be an active participant in the discussion. It’s tough to hit the sweet spot.

Dan also reposts a Ten Do’s and Don’ts list for Chinese/English interpreters that is kind of interesting. Of the ten items, I find the first one weird:

1. DON’T say have fun. The phrase “having fun” or any other derivative of it, “have fun” “had fun”, does not translate into Chinese. Culturally, it’s simply not a concept that resonates with Chinese people. It’s not that Chinese people don’t enjoy a good time, it’s that they don’t value fun as much as an English speaker might.

I think something got lost in the translation here, ’cause I don’t understand that at all. First, I’m trying to figure out when I would use “have fun” in a business context anyway. Can’t think of an example.

Second, Chinese people talk about “fun/play” very often, so the “does not translate” is puzzling. In fact, in English when we might say “I’m going to the mountains this weekend to go hiking,” a Chinese person might say “I’m going to the mountains this weekend to have fun.” Maybe I’m missing something here?

Third, and most bizarre, is the notion that “Chinese people don’t value fun as much as an English speaker might.” Huh? I think this makes no sense at all, but if anything, I think Chinese people value fun more than some Westerners. I know some industries in America where people having a lot of fun (e.g. vacation time, time out of the office) is frowned upon and seen as a weakness. One example would be American lawyers, unfortunately.

Anyway, good topic. Everyone over here has a good interpreter story to tell. By the way, the folks who are licensed to do simultaneous translation are amazing. I have always kind of been in awe of that ability — it appears to be insanely difficult.

Something tells me it’s huntin’ season, and the game of the day is Google. I was perusing China Daily today, as I am fond of doing, and became caught up in an article about foreign companies and Chinese branding. This issue is an old standard in trademark circles as well as the general foreign investment community.

Here’s the opening bit:

Overseas technology companies may possess hundreds of reasons for not having a great presence in China but one of the major ones, according to some, may be their local names.

Industry experts say many foreign firms don’t pay enough attention to their Chinese names. Some fail to research the culture while others choose characters that put potential customers off.

OK, that’s enough to get the attention of this IP lawyer, although I myself have probably written and spoken on this issue over a hundred times — it’s kind of all been said before by me and the other usual suspects.

I was interested though to see the word “technology” inserted in there. I thought maybe the article might also address patents or tech transfer, although I failed to see what that had to do with branding.

Imagine my surprise when I got to this passage:

Google, for example, upset a great number of its Chinese fans when the world’s largest search engine launched its Chinese brand name “Guge” in 2006. The name, which in Chinese means “harvesting song”, was considered by many to sound strange and unsophisticated.

The disaffection drove a group of Google Chinese fans to create a site called noguge.com, aimed at collecting suggestions for alternative names.

“Many Chinese users find it hard to pronounce Google and its Chinese name Guge,” said Edward Yu, president of domestic research firm Analysys International. “That partly resulted in a lower brand awareness for US firms in China, especially in third and fourth-tier cities.”

Ah, now I get it. This is called piling on, kicking a man when he’s down, jumping on the bandwagon . . . you get the idea.

Chinese names of foreign companies is a big issue. Again, I’ve dealt with this many, many times over the years. I’ve seen some stupid choices, some great ones, companies that spend very little time and effort in making the choice, while others pay out huge sums of money to PR agencies to ensure that their Chinese name is perfect.

MNCs have gotten pretty responsible about the name choice thing in recent years. The boneheaded moves are usually reserved for SMEs these days. And by the way, this has nothing in particular to do with “technology” companies. I suspect that word was used as a lame excuse to use Google as an example of a tech firm.

Is Google’s Chinese name so bad? I don’t think so, and most of the people I’ve talked to say it’s fine. Not as good as Coca-Cola’s notoriously perfect Chinese name maybe, but it’s all right. It definitely could have been worse. I’ve heard lots of Chinese folks pronounce “Google” using the sound “gou” (i.e. “gu gou”) — if Google really sucked, they might have ended up using “狗” (dog). Did Google’s name choice “disaffect” a huge number of Chinese “fans”? Um, that’s just a ridiculous statement.

If there is one thing the press is good at, it’s herd mentality. Google is an official target, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of this stuff. Perhaps future hit pieces will be slightly better researched and more effective, though.