Yeeyan is a new Chinese blog that runs a great two-way translation service, translating English blog posts and articles on a number of topics into Chinese and vice-versa. "Yeeyan" (译言) is an amalgam of the Chinese words for translation and speech. Tech news is one of its topics. It was spotted last year by the China Web 2.0 Review blog, which does a great job of summarizing what Yeeyan does:

Yeeyan is a group blog which intends to translate articles, mainly blog posts, on tech, startups and Internet into Chinese, to help bridge the language gap. So far, they have done a terrific job. They update blogs almost every day, translate many informative posts from A-list English bloggers, such as Michael Arrington, Richard MacManus and Fred Wilson, thousands of readers subscribe their RSS or read the blog, including me. They even got the Chinese copyright of Inside Facebook, and will translate and publish it in China.

But now, I would like to introduce Yeeyan to overseas readers as well, because Yeeyan launched its English version recently, that is to translate Chinese blog posts into English, to help foreigners to know opinions and analysis of Chinese bloggers, such as US Internet companies' top 10 mistakes in China and Yahoo China's Fiasco.

As CW2.0R points out, the first articles on Yeeyan's Chinese-to-English sites are total lulus, especially a still-underway translation of a mammoth article (Chinese) from China's heavyweight IT Times Weekly (IT时代周刊) tech trade on the unfortunate fate of Yahoo in China.

The article is from September, but it's interesting reading nonetheless. Anyone who has read my other blog, Imagethief, knows that the fates of foreign Internet companies in China are an area of particular interest to me. Yahoo's story, from its establishment in China to its sale of its Chinese entity, to Jack Ma's Alibaba, to its legal and personnel woes, has been epic. Here is an excerpt from Yeeyan's translation (I have not cleaned up the language, as you'll note):

Although [the first CEO of Yahoo China] Heping Zhang run Yahoo China, it was very difficult to convey the voices of China market to Yahoo headquarter. As a professional executive who understood China market deeply, he helplessly watched Yahoo being passed by local portals. So he quitted. In addition, during the bust of the dotcom bubble in 2001, with its stock price crashed, Yahoo became vulnerable itself. The headquarter believed, the goal in China market should be to get profitable rather than long term investment. All those factors caused that the number one portal of the world could not even squeeze into the second tier in China. And management shakeout happened frequently.

In fact Yahoo had their chance. It was only because their arrogance and therefore ignoring the China market, Yahoo gave up the opportunity to partner with Sina. "If Yahoo got humble and cooperated with Sina, the whole story might be different." Zhidong Wang said. Many believed it was government's policy barrier that hindered Yahoo China's development; Wang believed this was only an excuse. Sina, which was a joint venture between Stone and Sinanet who also had deep root in the US, was a counterexample for Jerry Yang's self-defense.

Difficulty communicating the unique demands of the Chinese market back to headquarters? There's a familiar story.

Yeeyan's translation is not always elegant, as you've seen, and as former China tech journalist and blogger-extraordinaire Kaiser Kuo notes in a comment, it depends a bit heavily on Google's spotty translation engine. But the English is readable. Yeeyan could probably also only thrive in China's permissive copyright environment. It's a brand-new service, but if it can keep this up it should provide an interesting window into the Chinese tech scene for those of us who find reading Chinese laborious, or impossible. Check it out.



Medic! "Yahoo's fiasco in China", translated by Yeeyan.