The Great Translation Movement: A window to Chinese media

_{Image: The Great Translation Movement Twitter}

By Anne Kader

The Great Translation Movement only opened its Twitter account in March 2022 but has already managed to gain a hefty 116,4K followers! They have assembled ‘Mandarin to English’ translations of Chinese social media posts under one hashtag: #TheGreatTranslationMovement.

Image: The Great Translation Movement Twitter

Their organized work – all done by voluntary netizens – has not gone unnoticed. They have exposed to the non-Chinese world what the Chinese netizens tweet about Chinese politics and foreign affairs, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and US-China relations. The content has not been very nice. Twitter even suspended the account in late March due to mass reporting. 

Image: The Great Translation Movement Twitter

The West has long been oblivious to the undertones of the Chinese mainline and social media. Uyghurs and Tibetans in exile, and more recently Hongkongers, have long warned that ‘what we see’ in the white-washed Chinese media does not portray the reality.