As international travel and business interest in China's second- and third-tier cities grows, increasing number of cities around China are producing English-language promotional platforms and materials aimed at reaching a broader international audience - primarily via the internet.
Kunming is no different. Last year as part of the launch of its Chinese-language Kunming Information Hub website, it also unveiled its most competent English-language website to date – en.kunming.cn.
Much of en.kunming.cn, which doesn't have an English name, is translated content from its sister site or aggregated content from other sources such as the China Daily. It has also republished copious amounts of content from GoKunming – without linking back to the source story on GoKunming.
In addition to text content, en.kunming.cn also features a promotional video with the semi-Chinglish title 'I'm Kunming' (我在昆明) (see first half of the video above, second half here), in which an actor portraying a presumably American photographer narrates his thoughts while experiencing some of the more quintessential Kunming experiences and destinations.
As one local government BBS summarizes the promo video:
A photographer, with a boring and perlexed [sic] mind, came to work at Kunming,the "Spring City" in southern China. While rambling in the fabulous and affectionate city, he was shocked and set out to look for the lost love...
Shortly after arriving in Kunming, the photographer is sitting in his room reading what appears to be a local newspaper called 'What's Kunming', which bears an uncanny resemblance to how GoKunming's 'About Kunming' page looked in late 2007 (note to whoever made the video: newspapers don't have login boxes).
It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – GoKunming is sincerely flattered. © Copyright 2005-2024 GoKunming.com all rights reserved. This material may not be republished, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Comments
very funny newspaper indeed :-D
en.kunming.cn is a terrible website but well, they are trying. I read once a story about heavy snow in Shangri-La: they were actually republishing your story that was 1 year old!
Excellent find Chris...though they are now listing GoKunming as a source for the articles they so kindly republished...someone must be reading, at least!
China is the king of copying. No surprise there.
But with such a high-quality production, didnt anyone think about removing the log-in? Its more such things, than the blatant copying, that strikes my eye. Its not the first time Iv seen similar types of oversight in Chinese products and I always find it amazing... They took the time to edit the name from GoKunming to What' s Kunming (really bad kerning, by the way also), but didnt take the time to remove the login window...
Yup. I got ripped off three times by the local government (that I know of). Go to them and politely complain, and ask for attribution. Emphasize the fact that they are violating Chinese law, and that everyone in China needs to follow Chinese law. I doubt you can get any compensation, but at least they can link to you and put a "courtesy of gokunming.com" at the end of the text they stole.
@CalMatt they have been naming the source from the beginning, but a real link to the original content would be better.
They don't necessarily need to have a direct link, that's usually a common courtesy.
better : en.kunming.cn/index/content/2009-04/07/content_1850804.htm ("according to GoKunming" with a direct link)
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