三级aa视频在线观看-三级国产-三级国产精品一区二区-三级国产三级在线-三级国产在线

您現在的位置: Language Tips> Columnist> Raymond Zhou  
   
 





 
Studying the 'Wen effect'
[ 2008-12-01 17:57 ]

By Raymond Zhou

Studying the 'Wen effect'

What do Oprah Winfrey and Wen Jiabao have in common? They can both catapult obscure works into bestsellers. The American television host opened a book club, a segment on her extremely popular talk show, in 1996 and has since recommended dozens of books, increasing their sales by as much as a million copies each. Hence, the "Oprah effect".

The Chinese premier mentioned in a visit to Singapore late last year that Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is his bedside reading. Since then, the Roman emperor's thoughts and insights have had half a dozen Chinese translations published, all of which are selling briskly. There is a bilingual Chinese-English edition, a special edition for adolescents and even a Meditations-style volume by one of the translators. All of them carry the tagline "a book Premier Wen Jiabao reads every day".

China has book critics, but their impact pales beside that of politicians. The Chinese version of The World Is Flat is on the recommendation list of several high-profile leaders. When Wang Yang, then Party secretary of Chongqing municipality, encouraged city officials to read it, 1,000 copies were sold in one day, emptying the city's entire inventory. Later, when Wang assumed the equivalent position in Guangdong province, he invited author Thomas Friedman for a visit.
A year ago, the Party secretary of Jiangxi province asked subordinates at an official meeting whether any of them had read the New York Times columnist's deep thoughts on globalization. Few hands shot up. Imagine the sales volume of that market!
 
When I interviewed Xia Deren, the mayor of Dalian, he gave me a copy of this book as a souvenir. I knew the mayor was featured in the book. And it was my guess he had bought hundreds of copies and gave them away as gifts.
 
This could be the envy of American politicians. President George W. Bush is said to be a bookworm, yet the release of his reading list, which includes such titles as American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky, and Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky, has not created miracles for their sales.
 
A comparison of the marketing strategies for Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne reveals a cultural chasm: In Amazon's introduction, the book is positioned as an "exercise in nano-sociology" for "culture buffs, retailers and especially businesspeople for whom 'small is the new big' will value". The Chinese title, as it appears on book retailing sites, is Microtrends: Jointly Recommended by Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. Here, the power of politics and money add to the prestige.
 
That explains the sudden popularity of titles concerning Barack Obama, the American president-elect. In the week after the election, the giant Zhongguancun bookstore in Beijing reported an 80 percent increase in sales of these titles, many of which were hastily assembled from online sources.
 
A search of Dangdang.com, one of the largest online retailers in China, early this week turned up 14 titles in all. Ranked at the top, by sales, is Obamanomics, written by John Talbott and translated into Chinese. At the bottom of the list is The Audacity of Hope written by Obama. In between is a bunch of quickly put-together volumes set to cash in on Obama's election.
In the old days, Chinese leaders were reluctant to publicize their reading lists. According to Southern Weekend, as late as 1987, when the Communist Party magazine Outlook asked Hu Yaobang, then Party secretary, to "promote reading", Hu said it was inconvenient for him to specify titles for recommendation.
 
The Fifth National Reading Survey, published in July 2008, reveals that the reading rate of books has halted its decline and rests at 48.8 percent, which translates to 4.58 volumes per capita (for the year 2006). The Southern Weekend interviews show the reading rate among government and Party officials hovers around 20-30 percent. These people have to wade through tons of documents every day, and for leisure they opt for newspapers instead. Unless assigned as a specific task by their boss, a book could be the last thing on their to-do list.
 
The report says the current reading craze engineered by top leaders could dissolve overnight once they leave office. The turning point for official enthusiasm with reading came in 2002 when the CPC report initiated the idea of a "study-oriented society".
 
In every hotel room of the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, there is a set of four big tomes, each devoted to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, says Professor Chen Xuewei of the school.
 
Beyond that, the reading list reflects the personal opinions of each official, big or small. The current trend is to endorse titles that help broaden one's vista, notes Ye Duchu, another professor of the Party School. "What used to be forbidden zones are no longer forbidden, but you have to have a global view. That's the biggest change in the past 30 years." Besides, book recommendation is not only top down, but could be bottom up as well. "Nobody is an expert at everything," Ye adds.
 
Strictly speaking, Premier Wen Jiabao was not asking everyone to read Meditations. He was saying he had read the book more than 100 times. Then publishers discovered how great and relevant this classic was. If you think about it, this slim volume says a lot about the personal philosophy and stoicism of the premier and, by extension, the way he governs the country and the policies he helps formulate.
 
Another title Wen has recommended, "no less than five times" according to media reports, is Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is less of a runaway hit than Meditations, but has 10 Chinese versions. The premier's endorsement has no doubt given a boost to its sales but its real value, given China's brush with natural disasters and corporate scandals, lies in the morals and ethics espoused in the book, which have come as a timely antidote.
 
In the final analysis, the success of the two classics is more a cultural phenomenon than a business one. The sharp eye of the publishers was certainly a factor but it was the ideas in them that resonate with present-day Chinese. The premier was, in a sense, using them as a moral guiding light.
 
Studying the 'Wen effect'

我要看更多專欄文章

 
英語點津版權說明:凡注明來源為“英語點津:XXX(署名)”的原創作品,除與中國日報網簽署英語點津內容授權協議的網站外,其他任何網站或單位未經允許不得非法盜鏈、轉載和使用,違者必究。如需使用,請與010-84883631聯系;凡本網注明“來源:XXX(非英語點津)”的作品,均轉載自其它媒體,目的在于傳播更多信息,其他媒體如需轉載,請與稿件來源方聯系,如產生任何問題與本網無關;本網所發布的歌曲、電影片段,版權歸原作者所有,僅供學習與研究,如果侵權,請提供版權證明,以便盡快刪除。
相關文章 Related Story
 
 
 
本頻道最新推薦
 
Walking in the US first lady's shoes
“準確無誤”如何表達
英國新晉超女蘇珊大媽改頭換面
豬流感 swine flu
你有lottery mentality嗎
翻吧推薦
 
論壇熱貼
 
別亂扔垃圾。怎么譯這個亂字呀?
橘子,橙子用英文怎么區分?
看Gossip Girl學英語
端午節怎么翻譯?
母親,您在天堂還好嗎?

 

主站蜘蛛池模板: 香蕉九九| 91.久久| 在线成人免费看大片 | 黑人干中国妞 | 黄色一级片在线看 | 一级毛片免费毛片一级毛片免费 | 男生j桶进女人p又色又爽又黄 | 精品推荐国产麻豆剧传媒 | 九九在线偷拍视频在线播放 | 九九99热久久精品在线6手机 | 亚洲国产成人va在线观看 | 黄色一级片性生活 | 欧美国产人妖另类色视频 | 欧美一区二区三区在线视频 | 日韩欧美一区二区三区不卡在线 | 国产91丝袜在线播放九色 | 女人一级一级毛片 | 国产精品久久久久久免费 | 日本三级a做爰视频东爱 | 美女黄色在线观看 | 高清亚洲精品酒店一区 | 米奇精品一区二区三区在线观看 | 久久精品视频18 | 99热久久国产综合精品久久国产 | 极品主播的慰在线播放 | 91视频国产精品 | 国产成人精品777 | 免费看一级黄色片 | 成人欧美精品大91在线 | 成人aaaa | 艹碰在线| 亚洲欧美另类日本久久影院 | 免费观看成人www精品视频在线 | 久久性生活片 | 国产亚洲精品日韩综合网 | 成年黄页网站视频全免费 | 亚洲三极 | 免费欧美黄色网址 | 免费观看日本污污ww网站一区 | 色屁屁一区二区三区视频国产 | 国产成人综合网在线播放 |