Thursday, November 08, 2007
Just Call Me Oliver
This week is unusual in that I'm eating a buffet lunch everyday at the swanky Nikko Hotel, for free.
Why? And how? By scamming my way into a television production workshop run by the Reuters Foundation. One of the advantages of being pathetic-looking is that you can play on people's sympathy with an exhibition of courageous pluck, such as when you're begging to be let into a class that only runs in Hanoi every six years (yes, it does help your presentation to be thinking "Please, sir, can I have some more?").
That photo sequence is a story on the theme of "Lost and Found". Our sequence was the best, mostly because a closeup meant to emphasize the loss of a scarf actually turned out to emphasize a group member's generous bust size. That particular photo went missing later.
That's Lloyd Watson. He looks like Daniel Craig, and is very used to working with translators. This means he speaks with a lot of pauses. When I first introduced myself, he thought I was the translator. Unfortunately, I am no where near qualified to be a translator. Lloyd was explaining that a series of photos were actually stills taken from footage, which I identified as screencaps.
Lloyd: "Yes, exactly. Can you say that in Vietnamese for them?"
Vi: *dies on the inside*
There actually was a misunderstanding about translators; the people in my department were given to understand, based on the information handed out to us, that the class was open to people who had enough command of English to make translators unnecessary. Some other people in the class didn't get the memo and consequently a colleague spent her first day of class as an impromptu simultaneous translator, which is ball-breaking work, eye-twisting work for which you normally get paid loads of money.
I gave her some some coma-inducing dessert instead:
Why? And how? By scamming my way into a television production workshop run by the Reuters Foundation. One of the advantages of being pathetic-looking is that you can play on people's sympathy with an exhibition of courageous pluck, such as when you're begging to be let into a class that only runs in Hanoi every six years (yes, it does help your presentation to be thinking "Please, sir, can I have some more?").
That photo sequence is a story on the theme of "Lost and Found". Our sequence was the best, mostly because a closeup meant to emphasize the loss of a scarf actually turned out to emphasize a group member's generous bust size. That particular photo went missing later.
That's Lloyd Watson. He looks like Daniel Craig, and is very used to working with translators. This means he speaks with a lot of pauses. When I first introduced myself, he thought I was the translator. Unfortunately, I am no where near qualified to be a translator. Lloyd was explaining that a series of photos were actually stills taken from footage, which I identified as screencaps.
Lloyd: "Yes, exactly. Can you say that in Vietnamese for them?"
Vi: *dies on the inside*
There actually was a misunderstanding about translators; the people in my department were given to understand, based on the information handed out to us, that the class was open to people who had enough command of English to make translators unnecessary. Some other people in the class didn't get the memo and consequently a colleague spent her first day of class as an impromptu simultaneous translator, which is ball-breaking work, eye-twisting work for which you normally get paid loads of money.
I gave her some some coma-inducing dessert instead:
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