Not surprised that there were edits or that the Chinese editors are a little sensitive… there are always edits and we’ve been navigating people’s sensitivity for a while. I misjudged the editor’s degree of sensitivity. Since it was an English publication to a small audience, and it’s not hard to find critical or more embarrassing stuff in Chinese, I didn’t think they’d care about most of this stuff.

But what part of the deleted text sounds sarcastic/snarky?

(Spelunker… i finally looked at those lyrics… wow.)

五星红旗迎风扇扬,
杨沛宜歌声多响亮;
歌唱咱们可爱的祖国
还踢比利时的腹腔!

越过天坛,越过鸟巢,
跨过游泳中心水立方!
宽畅美丽林妙可,
是我们亲爱的假象!
我们爱娉婷,我们爱假象!
我们上电视就不要失望!

五星红旗迎风扇扬,
杨沛宜歌声多响亮!
歌唱咱们可爱的祖国,
让林妙可提高质量!
世界看我们可爱祖国,
瞧着丫头牙口漂亮!

Does the original really come across that snarky? That’s not what I was going for at all. As for being aware of restrictions beforehand… I was aware that restrictions existed, but I thought I was more or less within them, and that they were mostly political, not patriotic. We have no detailed explicit instruction on what not to write. Like many rules and laws here, the restrictions are deliberately left vague (as this gives those enforcing them a greater amount of discretion). I sort of expected them to remove the reference to Mao, that’s fine with me, and I’ve always tried to be a little extra nice with all my stuff for them, but what surprised me was just how much ‘extra nice’ is required. I didn’t think it was that strict/sensitive.

Just met with the American editor today (he’s new, it was our first face-to-face meeting). I didn’t get the impression that things will get any less tight any time soon. In fact, the competing magazine got it much (much) worse than my little edits here, but I’ll let someone else tell that story. ;)

I can’t believe you picked up on the edited lyrics in ‘ode to my country’! I thought I was the only who noticed a change; I asked around and nobody believed me. Hope you do find out and solve the mystery! Any clues/theories so far?

Finally, loved the line, “Yeah, and I hear his Mandarin is probably even better than yours!” Yes, quite… Sheer class, that is! Keep up the good work and best wishes!

Getting edited for political restrictions makes me roll my eyes, but it’s not that big a deal because I’ve been expecting that situation since before we came to China. I wasn’t surprised at all when they said I had to remove the bit about Mao. But feeling like you have to walk on eggshells sometimes because of peoples’ hypersensitive patriotism is a little more annoying, esp. since it’s been more intense and constant during the Olympic year.

I thought that I was already doing a lot of self-censorship (with the writing), and being careful to go out of my way (in relationships) not to offend peoples’ patriotic sensitivities. So it surprised me to get it from the magazine and my teachers all in one week.

I don’t blame them for editing my stuff; it needs it! I’m no journalist; I just wrote lots of papers in grad school, and local expat magazines are great for practice! :)