Nlightenment
I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
While the BBC fears offending Muslims and the disabled, in other news it isn't so coy over racist slurs from children who know no better. A Chinese national, Lu Ke, has been exposed exploiting Malawian children by making video messages in a language that they don't understand. And the world's most trusted international news broadcaster
™ is balls-to-the-wall in courageously reporting on the slur fairly, impartially and without fear or favour
.
Or not.
He said he made his videos in order to spread Chinese culture to the local community. In one of the videos seen by the BBC, a group of young children is made to chant - in Chinese - "I'm a black monster. My IQ is low", clearly unaware of what they are saying.
Peter Jegwa, BBC News
It may be a case of the message getting lost in translation. But, according to Runako Celina, the word that the children were using was 黑鬼 (Hei Gui
): …which could be translated as
It appears, therefore, that Mr Jegwa has misrepresented what the children were being made to say.black monster
or black devil
but, really, it's the Chinese equivalent of the N-word.
But, the N-word
. What on earth could that mean? There are so many words beginning with N
to choose from. And, judging by the screenshot of her Google Translate session, it's six letters long.
It can't be nun, niece, nymph, or node, because they have too few letters. Norwegian, nuisance, newcomer, and narrator have too many. N
+5…hmmm (thinking)
Napkin? No, I don't think so. Nimbus, nugget, nodule, noodle, notion? Nope, none of those make sense. (shrug)
Nagger? Nah!…Ahaha, I think I have it!…(lightbulb)…NIGGER!
To be honest, it's getting pretty tedious doing the investigative research to understand the issues behind the BBC's fearless and impartial investigative reporting
. At least in this case I've learnt something in Chinese: 黑鬼 is nigger. So, it was all worthwhile in the long run, and I can consider myself enlightened in an Asian language. (no)
[immediately forgets]
Interestingly, when I tried it, Google Translate did not capitalise the translated version.
Yes, I know, cack-handed screenshot editing by someone at the BBC. But it could've been done so much more professionally.