China needs to tell its story better to foreigners

Disco Beach was a shoreline where crowds who danced to electronic music created vibrations that coaxed oysters to the surface.

Visitors arrived in donkeydrawn carts. They scooped up the mollusks to cook at this attraction in Jiangsu’s Nantong, or even take home. Today? Who knows? I can’t find English information about it online aside from the story I wrote after visiting in 2009.

But what I’ve seen recently is more such destinations throughout the country are developing informational English-language materials — those that not only inform but also entertain.

China has continued moving up the quality chain in terms of sharing its story globally. Twenty-one of the 50 NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members I interviewed on camera during the recent two sessions explained in plain English their suggestions during the country’s largest annual political gathering.

The video series, Two Sessions, One Minute, about the recently concluded National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee meetings covers a domestic affair — although with international impact.

Foreign journalists received multilingual materials and sometimes conducted interviews in foreign languages.

English was scant when I arrived 12 years ago — when my Chinese level was also low.

Then, a growing number of “Chinese-English” materials started to emerge. They were generally understandable but loaded with errors.

Later, the translation levels improved, but storytelling didn’t. Many of the materials were encyclopedic in tone — informative but dry.

The Allure of Suzhou — a book by the city’s publicity authorities to introduce the settlement that’s known as “China’s Eden” for its gardens and as “China’s Venice” for its canals — is a step in the right direction.

Local officials invited talented foreign writers to explore Suzhou’s offerings and share compelling stories about their experiences and discoveries.

It was a useful backgrounder for journalists, but also engaging enough that I kept it for pleasure reading after my assignments were done.

I’ve often discovered the stories I’ve written about many of the places and topics seem to be the first — and sometimes only ones — in English. Like Disco Beach. Many of the world’s misunderstandings of China’s realities stem less from different beliefs and more from ignorance due to a lack of communication that’s largely linguistic. Now China is increasingly speaking to the world in a way the global community not only understands but also finds captivating. Erik Nilsson

VCG Tongli ancient town in Suzhou, the “Venice of China” and capital of East China’s Jiangsu province, on Monday.