Sometime back, I took my outstation friend to my favorite Japanese restaurant. Personally, I think this restaurant offers the best tasting Japanese cuisine. My friend, an avid traveller was however not impressed. He told me yes, the food tasted good, but then you cannot exactly call their food ‘authentic.’ Huh? My friend being one of those lucky people who got to travel around the world and sample the best cuisine each country has to offer, explained to me authentic Japanese food is supposed to be bland. The de facto essence of Japanese cuisine is the harmonic balance between freshness of ingredients and taste. However, my friend being a Malaysian and had just as much as I, subjected our taste buds to the extremity of what our local cuisine offered, concurred the restaurant food is good in a Malaysian kind of way. No, it might not work for the Japs, but the locals loved it. Their business is good.
Now, when we talk about blogging, I’ve seen enough people finding disdain when blogs go ‘localized.’ The language purists will shout ‘Murder.’ Murdering English with colloquial writings and localized slangs only true blood Malaysians would know. I of course cannot say any individual is wrong to think that…. as long as he/she keeps it as their personal belief and conviction. Unfortunately the fact is, many of these individuals has been especially vocal, condemning localized flavored blogs, convicting them for killing the English language.
I’m using the word English here because many Malaysian bloggers blogged in English. The truth is, it can be English, Chinese, French, German or Dutch. Each has a written language in their own right. For one minute disregard the perfect ‘good’ written language, the underlying fact is, language is merely a means to communicate. Communicate with whom? Your audience/readers. The communication factor is the most important thing, yes, above beautiful constructed sentences. I am not discounting the annoying spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Bad English is bad. That is not what I am pointing out today. The issue is not bad English, it is the use of localized writings incorporated into English and why it should be tolerated. You will be surprised how people confused themselves between bad English and English tinged with local words.
If, I am running a personal blog and I know most if not all my readers are from Malaysia, using localized language in getting through my message is no sin. Afterall, my readers know what I am talking about. OK, the sporadic UK blog hopper might not has a clue what I am talking about, but it is not like the UK blogger will find it better if they chanced upon a French blog tinged with English. I do admit the chances of a blogger reaching out to a more global audience is always better if he/she uses pure English. But then it’s the sovereign choice of the blogger. You cannot say McD is discriminating the Malaysians with non-local menu anymore you can accuse KFC of localizing Colonel Sanders by serving rice together with his finger lickin’ good chicken.
I am now doing paid posts and I’ve seen many posties and advertisers not feeling good about paid-posts blogger using localized language in their posts. Now, paid posts companies like PayPerPost specified in their Terms Of Agreement, their postie blog must be in English. OK, when it is stated in black and white, you either accept their terms or walk away. I will leave PPP out, but then I am not letting those advertisers off the hook. Not so easily.
When advertiser pays a blogger to write about them, what is the thing they want? Good writing skills? Maybe, good writing skill is a plus, but then, why not just hire independent professional writers to do the write-up? I am sure the quality of the post is pretty much guaranteed that way. Why risk it with non-professionals like bloggers? The answer is easy. While a blogger who write good posts is much appreciated, it is their blog readers they are targeting. Their blog traffic. In view of that, I sure hope advertisers could lax a little and allow room for the creative flow of the blogger free to do what they do best - reach out to their readers. Yes, that could mean localizing their blog contents to suit the taste bud of their blog readers. Just like my Japanese restaurant. I had now accepted the fact they don’t really serve authentic Japanese cuisine, but then do I stop going? No and it is a no brainer why. It suits my taste.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Bloggings, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
It’s demographics as well. Who are your target readers? Malaysians? People in English speaking countries? You can go localized when you’re perfectly alright with the majority of your readers in a local area.
People like myself on the other hand have grown outside just a local area so how we write caters to the universal norm. Plus if we do that, then localized translations are easier to run on the blog as well expanding our readership.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be localized, it’s just that I can’t stand the hypocrisy of trying to be big while disregarding that there is a whole world out there bigger than a small country that has its own mannerism. There is a balance between the local flavour and a foreign one, but it’s not without taking out the essence of what makes both of them unique in their own right.
You are right but Edrei also has a point.
Solution?
Rojak the blog! Give readers everything they want. But then again, to wish that everyone on this planet with internet access will want to read and love your blog is wishful thinking. We can;t please anyone. I’ve learned that blogging to please people makes blogging kinda stressful.
Good english???!!! If this is enforce, Hor ny Ang Moh will be the first to be killed!!!My english is all non-standard full of gramar mistake. Future,past & present tense all mixed up wan & all sort of spelling mistake! But so far I think my reader can understand what I write. I suppost this is why untill now still so poor in blogging! Nice inform & have a nice day!
MMM… I depend. If I am writing a review which I know will be read by some Ang Moh company, I will write in good english. as in my LouYeh Blog and Blog Gigs.
For Ahpek.com, I spice it up with local flavor.
Sometimes when we think back, we can’t blame those Ang Mohs for they think there is only one culture in this world and that is theirs. They never study world history in school, only history of their own country. They never watch foreign programs. So they live in a nutshell, thinking the whole world thinks the same as them.
We are different. We know how the Ang Moh thinks and acts. We studied in English schools using the British teaching method. We watch American programs from small. So when the Ang Mohs speaks and curse, we feel quite at home. We don’t call them crude or rude. We say they are cool.
On the other hand, when we say something crude that they don’t understand, they start scratching their heads, thinking we are being rude, we are uneducated, not cultured, uncivilised and living in the stone age. It all boils down to their ignorance about different cultures and different ways of life that we have .
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