The Effort of GDUFS Behind the Asian Games

As a university with international characteristics, GDUFS serves as a bridge connecting home and abroad. In 2010, the Asian Games had witnessed GDUFSers’ intelligence and diligence when the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies (SITS) in at GDUFS met took up the challenge to of doing the translation work for the Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony of the Asian Games, as well as for the Asian Para Games.

Accepting the Challenge at a Crucial Moment

On November 11th, 2010, an emergency call from the Guangzhou Organizing Committee for the Asian Games commissioned GDUFS talents to translate the commentary and lyrics for the Opening Ceremony. Such a task was placed in front of GDUFSers that the translation, proofreading and final compilation and editing should be done within 6 hours, remaining retaining the flexibility and fluency of the original language at the same time.

Without hesitation, the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies built up a team, which threw all their energy into the battle against time. Ten teachers, namely MUO Aiping, ZHANG Baohong, YU Dong, LIU Jichun, LI Ming, PING Hong, ZHU Dongwei, ZHAN Cheng, QIAN Fang and OUYANG Qianhua, after a hurriedly packed meal, gathered at the meeting room to get their hands full.

Though the subtitle space was limited, the group spared no effort to achieve the finest effects by taking advantage of the art of translation. Three hours later, the first draft was completed, which was followed by the final compilation and editing work, during which the teachers gave full play to their collective wisdom, filling the room with a harmonious and excited atmosphere.

When it was about 11 o’clock, most teachers left with satisfaction. MUO Aiping was the only one who stayed at in the room to hand in the final piece. Just then the telephone rang. It was from his colleague YU Dong, who pointed out another two mistakes to be corrected. As little an incident as it may seem, the devotion and professionalism of GDUFS teachers were mirrored.

The lyrics on the scroll bars translated by GDUFS teachers

Forming Ties with the Asian Games

GDUFS’s first effort was recognized by the Guangzhou Organizing Committee, who therefore required translations by GDUFS for the Closing Ceremony of the Asian Games. Later, excellent translations of Voice Over and Highlights of the Asian Games by Professor ZHAO Junfeng, Professor LI Ming and Dr ZHU Dongwei were highly praised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Once again, GDUFS SITS was appointed with important missions when the Asian Para Games of Guangzhou was coming. All translation work for the opening ceremony, Teleprompters, and commentary during performances was dependent on SITS. Among all, Professor LI Ming was responsible for translation work for the opening ceremony and closing ceremony. Professor Ping Hong, Dean of SITS at that time, gave a great support to this task, to ensure the broadcasting take took place smoothly.

In fact, the first encounter could be traced back to 2004, when Guangzhou was applying for the Asian Games and present current president of GDUFS ZHONG Weihe participated in the translation work for the text of used when applying. Also, ZHAN Cheng was the chief interpreter of Guangzhou delegations. It was a time that GDUFSers conveyed Guangzhou’s promises to the world. Due to their contribution, they were selected as the torchbearers of Guangzhou and Zhuhai, and ZHANG Chen was named as the Foreign Language Ambassador of the Asian Games.

Students of GDUFS Constructing the Last Line of Defense

GDUFS, as the targeted volunteer recruiting department of the Asian Games, it provided 7000 volunteers in total, and ranked first in Guangdong province’s universities. Besides, GDUFS took charge of service for OFA and NOC, editing work for AGNS, translation work and work of flash quote reporters.

During the Asian Games, the Guangzhou Organizing Committee established Guangzhou Multilingual Service Center, in cooperating cooperation with GDUFS. They adapted a new interpreting waymethod—through phone calls—to provide an interpretation service. There were totally 20 lines for foreigners in total to get an interpretation service, including English, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Thai, Cambodian, Indonesian and Vietnamese.

Guangzhou Multilingual Service Center Established at GDUFS on 24th October, 2010

Liu Zhijun took the job as manager and Chen Jing and Huang Xi vice-managers. There were 81 voluntary telephone interpreters. Among 16 interpreters for English, 13 of them were from GDUFS SITS. All of these volunteers stick stuck to their job and patiently provided consulting services to foreigners on food, transport, medicine, living and organizations of events. They constructed the last line of language services.

During Over its 55 work days, Multilingual Service center offered 14640 hours telephone interpretation service totally, with 2833 calls and 150.9 seconds for each call on average. For the Asian Para Games, it received 468 calls in total and 188.42 seconds for each on average. After the events, Guangzhou Multilingual Service Center was treasured as a heritage of the Asian Games.