Nicholas Bell (l) with Fiona Choi (r).
TRANSLATOR: The most difficult … the most difficult.
I guess it would be the proverbs.
I generally opt for a literal translation
‘Stone’ to ‘stone’
And let the hearer extrapolate
Well, take something like ‘every rose has its thorns’
That’s pretty universal.
But for something culturally entrenched
Or by some degrees removed
That’s a little trickier
An example:
三个和尚没水喝 (Sān gè héshàng méi shuǐ hē.)
Three monks have no water to drink.
Any thoughts?
(laughing) Right. Doesn’t work so well.
So what do I do with that?
I can try to find an English equivalent, if one exists.
But of course, I risk making false parallels
Unwittingly engaging in an act of … linguistic imperialism
Or I can really spell it out—
Here’s the monks, here’s the water
Here’s what that all means
But you do lose some of the beauty
Of the original
It’ll be much the same with this job
I suspect
I tend to employ a kind of … hybrid approach
A bit of one-to-one, a bit of analogy,
Context where you need it
A word of warning though
Things can get … muddy
I always tell my clients, ‘give your mind time to adjust’.
It can be disorienting, hearing multiple voices at once
Just settle into it
Trust that your mind is a machine
Eventually, it’ll find a focal point
Having said that,
It is essential that you concentrate
JULIE: (out) There’s a lot of jargon in this case. A lot of legal jargon and a lot of technical / jargon.
MARSHALL: You’ve got IDS devices at the local router level, you’ve got provincial ISPs doing their own shit, so by the time you get to the / border AS—
JULIE: My advice to you is this: don’t get caught up in the jargon. Jargon is one of many tactics employed by corporations like the defendant—
THE TRANSLATOR: ONYS Systems.
JULIE:—to evade accountability. Because they assume that the layman—and don’t be offended, but that’s you and me—simply can’t understand what it is they do. What they build.
JANE: (to Marshall) When I say call me back, you / have to—
MARSHALL: I’m busy, Bollman.
JANE: You have to / call me back.
JULIE: That’s not what this case is about.
MARSHALL: I’m busy, someone’s suing us?
JANE: Yes, I’ve been trying / to—
MARSHALL: Who’s suing us?
JANE: Eight Chinese dissidents.
JULIE: This is about right and wrong.
MARSHALL:… what?
JANE: Eight / Chinese—
MARSHALL: I heard you—fucking, what?
JULIE: You don’t need to understand jargon to understand that.
EVA: What does that mean exactly, the Law of Nations?
MEI: Then what are you? What did you do?
那你是什么？/你干了什么？
Nà nǐ shì shénme?/Nǐ gànle shénme?
DAO: I can’t survive without you.
没有你我活不下去。
Méiyǒu nǐ wǒ huóbuxiàqù.
JANE: Eight Chinese dissidents are suing us for criminal collusion with the Chinese government.
MARSHALL: The—how? What? In China?
JANE: In … Texas.
MARSHALL:… how?
JANE: It has to do with / … pirates.
RICHARD: It’s about pirates.
JULIE: (out) Having said that, I have some legal jargon to get out of the way. The fact is that in this case the plaintiffs are not American citizens. They are eight citizens of the People’s Republic of China. And they are suing the defendants—
THE TRANSLATOR: ONYS Systems.
JULIE:—for injuries inflicted in the state of China. So I imagine you’re a little confused / I imagine you’re wondering what the hell this has to do with you as a resident of Dallas County. And to explain that, I’m going to tell you about a piece of legislation called the Alien Tort Statute.
THE TRANSLATOR: D.C., 2012.
RICHARD: It’s about pirates.
JULIE: I’m aware of / the—
RICHARD: I mean I’d never even heard of this thing, you know why I’d never heard of it? Because it’s from the Judiciary Act of 1789. Wherein this statute was included, I’m informed by the best and brightest legal historians, as a means for dealing with / pirates.
JULIE: Pirates.
RICHARD: Pirates. As in ‘yarr’.
JULIE: Is that your pirate?
RICHARD: Maybe, why, what’s your pirate?
JULIE:… ahoy?
RICHARD: You’re a disgrace to the legal profession.
JULIE: You said yarr.
RICHARD: Jules, I just don’t wanna be that firm.
JULIE: I hear you.
RICHARD: I don’t wanna just jump on some fad legal loophole just because every other schmuck on the human rights beat is doing it.
JULIE: It’s not a fad.
RICHARD: I mean God knows your little humanitarian hobby is taking up enough billable hours—
JULIE: Well, I’m sorry doing my civic duty isn’t proving to be a particularly profitable venture / for you.
RICHARD: That’s not what I—don’t put words in my mouth, Jules. I just mean that the last thing we can afford right now is some kinda academic exercise—
JULIE: It’s / not—
RICHARD:—in whether or not a district judge will uphold an eighteenth-century statute. A statute which, I’ll remind you, was not intended for a modern court of law but for marauding gangs of Vitamin-C-deficient pirates.
JULIE: It’s not an academic exercise. Look, Kpadeh v. Emmanuel, tried in Florida last month, under the ATS.
THE TRANSLATOR: Alien Tort Statute.
JULIE: Twenty-two million in damages.
RICHARD: Jules, that case was about a Liberian dictator wiping his ass with the Geneva Convention. You wanna use this thing, you gotta have something that’s flagrantly violating the Law of Nations.
JULIE: Okay. What about an oppressive government that casually engages in torture, censorship and ethnic genocide?
RICHARD: Well, which government are we talking about here? About seventeen are coming to mind. (beat) Aw Jules! Not the China thing!
JULIE: I know it’s not much to be going on.
RICHARD: No, no, I’m sorry, just because your comrade at / that Australian NGO—
JULIE: Amanda’s not my comrade, okay, I / don’t have comrades.
RICHARD:—has you all hot and bothered about some leaked document—
JULIE: It’s an internal ONYS document that explicitly shows—
RICHARD: It’s a bullet point!
JULIE: But—
RICHARD: A bullet point. You don’t mount a case around a bullet point.
JULIE: Rich, think of the precedent. If we could get some dissidents willing to sign on as plaintiffs, we get a class action going—
RICHARD: Woah, now we’re talking about a class action?
JULIE: We’d have foreign citizens suing a multinational corporation. In a US district court. Doesn’t that get you going just a little? Come on. It’s the white whale of international humanitarian law.
RICHARD: Which district?
JULIE: I was thinking Dallas.
RICHARD: Dallas? Why Dallas?
JULIE: ONYS have an office in Fort Worth. Plus you passed the bar in Dallas.
RICHARD: You don’t need me. Do it yourself, pro hac vice.
JULIE: Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be my co-counsel.
RICHARD: You don’t want me to co-counsel. (beat) Wait, you want me to co-counsel?
JULIE: It’d be a landmark case, Rich.
Beat. Richard is somewhat persuaded.
RICHARD: I don’t have a problem with the humanitarian stuff, Jules. It’s good for the firm. But if you’re thinking about a class action here, that’s a three, four-year timeline and a helluva lotta resources. It can’t just be a gesture. It has to be … you know. Viable.
THE TRANSLATOR: Profitable.
JULIE: I hear you. Gimme a month. I’ll dig around, see if it’s viable.
RICHARD: Two weeks. And if you have to fly over there—
JULIE: Out / of my own pocket.
RICHARD: Out of your own pocket.
Beat.
RICHARD: Hey, how’s your Mandarin these days?
JULIE: Shot to shit. Why, you know any decent translators?
RICHARD: (knowingly) I mean.
JULIE: Rich. That’s a terrible idea. (beat) Hey. That’s not a terrible idea.
THE TRANSLATOR: D.C., 2012.
EVA: So it’s like—
JULIE: You don’t have to—
EVA: No, but I want to. So.
JULIE: Okay.
EVA: Okay, so it’s like—a foreign citizen, or, I guess, citizens / plural?
JULIE: Right.
EVA:—can file in a US district court, but, only, or specifically if it’s a lawsuit?
JULIE: Well, no, in torts.
EVA: Doesn’t that—
JULIE: It’s—
EVA: No, but a tort means a lawsuit, right?
JULIE: Torts is a whole branch of—Evie, you really don’t have to understand the case.
EVA: But I—
JULIE: Because I’m not asking you / to—
EVA: And—‘in violation of the Law of Nations’—
JULIE: Evie.
EVA: What does that mean, exactly, the Law of Nations?
JULIE: Well, there’s some debate about—that’s why it’s a sort of a loophole. I told you, right, it’s kinda funny, it was actually, what it was intended for, was a way of dealing with—
EVA: Pirates. / Yeah.
JULIE: Yarr.
Beat.
EVA: It just doesn’t seem like much to be going on.
JULIE:… right.
EVA: And if the only evidence is this bullet / point—
JULIE: Actually, Evie, I didn’t come for your legal opinion, okay, I’m a lawyer, I can form my own legal opinion, fuck.
Beat.
EVA: Okay.
JULIE: So can you do it, or …
EVA: You are aware … this is D.C. Like, translators aren’t few and far between.
JULIE: What, does it offend you, that I came to you with this?
EVA: I just like don’t need a bailout.
JULIE: That’s not what this is.
EVA: Like, I’m okay.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘I’m not okay.’
JULIE: It’s not—it’s not a bailout, okay? I gotta have someone I trust over there, we’ll be dealing with some sensitive shit, some anti-CCP shit.
THE TRANSLATOR: Chinese Communist Party.
EVA: I just don’t want you to think, like, because the last time we—
JULIE: No, I’m not—funerals are weird, dude. I’m not—I mean—water under the bridge.
THE TRANSLATOR: An idiom that generally refers to events that have happened in the past and are consequently no longer a source of concern. However, in this case, it means something like ‘I’m still mad at you but let’s not talk about it.’
JULIE: Just, you’re being fucking weird, what is it, Evie? Did I offend you? I just … you kept up with the language and I didn’t, so … that’s all. That’s all. I’m in a position, like I said, I have some new evidence and Richard’s supporting me in this, I mean he’s not exactly supporting me, but you’d get a per diem and shit.
EVA: I don’t know if I can. Timeline-wise.
JULIE: Timeline-wise, what does that mean, timeline-wise?
EVA: With my—you know I, like, applied to programs.
JULIE: Oh, uh.
EVA: What?
JULIE: I mean, it’s—we’ve had this conversation.
EVA: What?
JULIE: It wasn’t programs, you submitted a half-hearted application to Georgetown.
EVA: I might get in.
JULIE: (laughing) I admire your optimism.
THE TRANSLATOR: Roughly, ‘you spent three years at Berkeley getting wasted, there’s no way you’re getting into Georgetown.’
Beat.
EVA: Yeah, so, I gotta go.
JULIE: Aw, what, you can’t take a joke, come on, Evie.
EVA: That wasn’t—you can’t just—
JULIE: Lighten the fuck up, dude, DUDE, it was a joke.
EVA: You can’t just, you can’t just be a dick, and call it farce.
JULIE: Can’t take a joke, Evie, shit.
EVA: This is a tired argument, so.
Beat.
JULIE: So what are you doing, then?
EVA: As in?
JULIE: As in, like, regular human survival shit. Do you have some kind of, I don’t know, revenue stream?
EVA: I’m freelancing.
JULIE: Translating?
EVA: Translating isn’t the only thing you can do with an Asia Studies major.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘I regret my choices and I’m essentially unemployable.’
JULIE: So what, you’re temping? (beat) What are you, being fucking coy? What?
EVA: I don’t wanna talk about it.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘I’m not talking about it.’
JULIE: The fuck, Evie, why not?
EVA: I just … I can’t talk about it.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘I’m not talking about it, to you.’
JULIE: Because it’s me?
EVA: Because a lot of things.
JULIE: Why?
EVA: As I just said. I can’t—
THE TRANSLATOR:—‘won’t’—
EVA:—talk about it.
JULIE: (joking) What is it, illegal? (beat) It’s not illegal. Is it? Is it illegal?
EVA: I’ve said that I’m not talking about it, if that presents a problem to you, then, you know.
Beat.
Fiona Choi (l) and Jing-Xuan Chan (r).
JULIE: Tell me it’s not illegal.
EVA: It’s not illegal.
JULIE: Are you lying to me?
EVA: No.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘Yes.’
JULIE: Okay.
EVA: It’s not.
JULIE: Okay.
EVA: Strictly.
JULIE: Evie.
THE TRANSLATOR: There’s some debate, as to whether or not Eva’s profession is, in fact, legal.
JULIE: Are you—
JULIE: Because—
EVA: For this. Discussion.
JULIE: Because I can’t cover you under attorney–client privilege if / it’s—
EVA: It’s—I know this is somewhat impossible for you to believe, but I can take care of myself, I have been taking care of myself, you know, for some time now, I am a person, who functions independently of you.
JULIE: But—
EVA: WILL YOU LIKE TRUST THAT I’M NOT BROKEN,
FOR JUST ONCE IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE, CAN YOU TRUST THAT.
Beat.
JULIE: I don’t think you’re broken.
EVA: Yeah, yeah, you do. But it’s fine.
Beat.
JULIE: It’s Beijing, Evie. It’s just … being there, it’ll be so …
EVA: I know.
JULIE: And so soon after Mom.
EVA: I know.
JULIE: Just—don’t write it off, okay? I … I would like to do this for you. Okay?
Beat.
EVA: What’s it say?
JULIE: What?
EVA: The bullet point. What’s it say?
THE TRANSLATOR: Dallas, 2015.
JULIE: Could you state your name and occupation for the record?
MARSHALL: Marshall McLaren. I’m the President of China Operations at ONYS Systems.
JULIE: Thank you. Mr McLaren, could you tell us when you had your first consultancy with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security?
MARSHALL: In 2004.
JULIE: And then your contract was renewed in 2006?
MARSHALL: Yeah.
JULIE: And when did you go public?
MARSHALL: Our IPO, was, yeah, the year before that. 2005.
JULIE: You opened at a market value of, let’s see here, $27 billion?
MARSHALL: Pretty cheap, actually. $45 a share.
JULIE: And these days, that number is closer to, what?
MARSHALL: Look, I’m not a ‘market’ guy, Ms Chen, you know, I’m in management, but I got into this as an engineer. So.
Beat.
JULIE: Okay then. (beat) What were you consulting on in 2004?
MARSHALL: ISP Efficiency in Border and Internal AS-Topologies in Greater China.
JULIE: That’s a lot of acronyms, Mr McLaren.
MARSHALL: Not for my line of business.
JULIE: Okay, let’s start with ISP, what’s that?
MARSHALL: Internet service providers.
JULIE: Okay, so ISP Efficiency: you were trying to make the internet faster?
MARSHALL: More efficient, sure.
JULIE: And did you?
MARSHALL: Did we increase network efficiency?
JULIE: Yes.
MARSHALL: I’m proud to say we did that. By around four hundred percent.
JULIE: Congratulations.
MARSHALL: Thanks.
JULIE: Could you be a little more specific about what you mean when you say ‘efficiency’?
Beat.
MARSHALL: No.
Beat.
JULIE: Okay … what aspect, or aspects, of the Chinese internet, were you trying to make more efficient?
MARSHALL: That’s the thing about networks, Ms Chen. It’s all somewhat interconnected.
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing, 2006.
MARSHALL: The thing with the fucking food, right—
LARRY: I am begging you not to get into this.
MARSHALL: No, because, if every fucking night, we have to sit down to a roundtable with eight ministers—
LARRY: It’s a / cultural—
MARSHALL:—this is the twenty-first—what are we, the fucking yakuza, is what I’m saying—I need my fucking laptop, now they’re giving us this shit—
LARRY: No one’s giving us shit.
MARSHALL: They are, Larry, they’re giving us shit, it’s polite Chinese shit, but it’s shit nonetheless, and what I’m saying is, is—if we could have a meeting, one meeting, in an office, in an office with desks, I don’t need another, another fucking five pots of steamed whatever or a fucking egg that’s been fermented for a hundred years in a silk basket at the foothills of Mountain Fing-fong-fang—
LARRY: They’re actually, they’re quite good, the century eggs.
THE TRANSLATOR: Century eggs are a Chinese delicacy.
MARSHALL: Rotten eggs, Larry.
THE TRANSLATOR: They are not literally fermented for a century.
MARSHALL: They are hundred-year-old rotten eggs.
LARRY: It’s traditional.
MARSHALL: Traditions die, Larry. Traditions, they just, I’m not saying they aren’t nice, and, and quaint, but traditions, sometimes they need to die, and this food thing—this is a thing that needs to die. The, look, the next generation, the millennial Chinese, you don’t see them doing this shit, do ya, you don’t see Samsung China having fucking dumpling meetings. Because the world, this one, that we presently occupy, is a world where meetings happen in offices, in office buildings with wifi and, and, I don’t know, at the very goddamn least, my laptop, Larry, my goddamn laptop.
LARRY: This is the Ministry of Public Security here, okay, these are not tech-savvy people, these are old-guard communists here.
MARSHALL: And now this, what they are calling it, this exhibition?
LARRY: Oh, now you wanna work?
MARSHALL: Woah, hey, you’re the one—
LARRY: No, that was—you just caught me off guard.
MARSHALL: I’m not procrastinating here, I’m frustrated—
LARRY: Sorry, no, you’re—you’re right.
MARSHALL: I’m always right, Larry. So this, uh, the (looking at a document) the Comprehensive Exhibition on Chinese Information System. System?
LARRY: I thought it was rude to / correct—
MARSHALL: They not got plurals in Mandarin?
THE TRANSLATOR: They don’t.
MARSHALL: Okay, so, what kinda demonstration are we talking about here?
LARRY: I, uh—the description is a bit … vague.
MARSHALL: (reading) ‘Make efficient and consciously implement system for targeting obscene and harmful materials.’ Lovely euphemism for porn.
LARRY: I think it’s a bit of a mistranslation.
THE TRANSLATOR: It’s not.
MARSHALL: ‘Make efficient.’
THE TRANSLATOR: In Mandarin, the goal of the action is often inbuilt in the verb.
MARSHALL: Jesus.
THE TRANSLATOR: Actually, it’s been suggested by linguists that this reflects two completely different patterns of thought. The Mandarin speaker thinks circularly, in a loop, while the English speaker thinks linearly, in a line. (beat) That’s not strictly / relevant.
MARSHALL: Larry, what happens when the world’s biggest flow of data—the packets of 1.3 billion users—goes through a single filtering system?
LARRY: Uh, it’s—bad?
MARSHALL: Through one chokehold to the world wide web, Larry, what happens?
LARRY: Things get stuck.
MARSHALL: Things that aren’t supposed to get stuck, get stuck. And things that aren’t supposed to get through, get through. What else?
LARRY: It’s slow?
MARSHALL: That’s right, Larry. It’s slow as shit. Because trying to sift through the online traffic of the world’s largest fucking population is a pretty fucking inefficient process, it is in fact a necessarily inefficient—(a realization) Larry.
LARRY: You’re having / a—
MARSHALL: Yeah, I am, I am, Larry, Larry, what if it wasn’t a single filtering system?
LARRY:… you lost me.
MARSHALL: Why did I hire you?
LARRY: I’m the only guy who’ll put up with you.
MARSHALL: I’m ignoring that. Larry, what if we decentralized the firewall?
MARSHALL: The chokehold is at the border AS, right? But what if the filtering wasn’t just happening at the national level?
LARRY: Uh.
MARSHALL: Think about it: three-tier structure, right? Local, provincial, national. You’ve got IDS devices at the local router level, you’ve got provincial ISPs doing their own shit, so by the time you get to the border AS—
LARRY: Wait, / Marsh.
MARSHALL:—the packet’s already been through, what, twelve, thirteen different checkpoints. More IP blocking, more DNS hijacking, and you unclog the whole fucking system. And yes, I will accept my Nobel prize now.
LARRY: I don’t know, Marsh.
MARSHALL: Why, cuz their hardware won’t cut it? Yeah, that crossed my mind, but here’s the fucking kicker, Larry: we build the routers. Not just the routers—I’m talking the whole architecture. Data centers, switches, access points. We don’t just sell them an idea, Larry. We can sell them the fucking gear to do it.
Beat.
LARRY: Marsh, I mean—that’s kind of a different ballgame.
MARSHALL:… we’re in IT, Larry. Don’t do sport metaphors.
LARRY: You’re talking about giving them a lot more, uh—
MARSHALL: A lot more … what?
LARRY: You know. ‘Mileage.’
MARSHALL: (not getting it) Yeah. It’s a faster topology. That’s the point.
LARRY: That’s not—
MARSHALL: That’s the point, Larry.
LARRY: But you’re not just talking about, like, filtering out content from the rest of the world, that’s—you’re talking about internal monitoring. At every level.
MARSHALL: Yeah, I mean, that’s the way they’re headed. They’re just doing it inefficiently. We can make it efficient.
Beat.
LARRY: Anyway, you’re talking about a huge overhaul, building them new infrastructure, I mean, jeez, we’re supposed to be consulting / on—
MARSHALL: Larry, need I remind you here, we’re building up to the fucking Olympics here—
LARRY: What / I’m—
MARSHALL:—you wanna talk about ballgames, that’s the ballgame, Larry, the fucking Beijing Olympics, you heard about that little eight-figure ballgame?
LARRY: All we’re contractually obligated to—
MARSHALL: It’s called the Golden Shield Project.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘金盾工程 (jīndùn gōngchéng)’.
LARRY: They’re just talking about blocking porn, for chrissakes, you don’t need a total overhaul—
MARSHALL: But it’s not called the no-porn project, is it, Larry? It’s called the Golden Shield Project. That’s a pretty fucking superlative name for a no-porn project, wouldn’t you say, Larry? Almost like they’re aiming at something a little more grandiose. And when you see the pharaoh drawing up the plans for the fucking pyramids, it’s probably a good time to get into the brick business.
LARRY: Marsh, all I’m saying is, maybe we just give the client what they’re actually asking for? Like, I’m just saying, you know, if all they’re talking about right now, if all they’re willing to talk to us about, is filtering out some porn, maybe we just deliver some basic ways of, like, filtering out some porn, is all I’m saying.
Beat.
MARSHALL: You know what I dream of, Larry?
MARSHALL: No, no, let me finish, it’s a really—it’s a breathtaking dream, Larry, you’re gonna want to hear this dream, Larry. I dream of a man. I dream of a meeting with a man.
LARRY: There are websites for that.
MARSHALL: Let me finish. This man is from State. No, better yet, Defense. And this man comes up to me, and he says to me, in simple, glorious, American English, ‘Mr McLaren, we’d like you to build the most efficient national network topology the world has ever seen. And if you choose to take on this monumental task’, says the man from Defense, ‘in addition to our eternal gratitude, we’re gonna give you a ton of space, we’re gonna give you a round-the-clock team of guys, we’re gonna dedicate maximal resources to this endeavor because it is at the very top of our list, it is our number one national security priority.’ And you know where this meeting happens, Larry?
LARRY: No.
MARSHALL: Me neither, but it sure as shit ain’t a fucking dumpling house.
THE TRANSLATOR: Dallas, 2015.
JULIE: Mr McLaren, back in 2006, were you aware of the existence of an online forum known as Zhuangzi?
MARSHALL: You’d have to be pretty fu—you’d have to be pretty clueless to work in China, in my line of business, and not know about Zhuangzi. I’m not clueless.
JULIE: Could you answer / the—
MARSHALL: Yeah, I knew about Zhuangzi.
JULIE: What did you know about it?
MARSHALL: I knew it was an underground, sorta, online community, forum, people voicing their dissatisfaction about the government. Frequented by dissidents. (beat) Not that—I don’t have a stance on—I’m just using the terminology.
MARSHALL: That’s just, that’s a fact, they’re, they’re deemed by, to be dissidents.
JULIE: Of course. (beat) Your contract with the Ministry was renewed in 2006?
MARSHALL: As I’ve said.
JULIE: Why did your geographical total increase?
MARSHALL: Sorry?
JULIE: In 2005, you reported that China made up 11% of your gross revenue. In 2006, that number jumps to a whopping 34%. Why’d you make more money in 2006?
Beat.
MARSHALL: I guess they liked us.
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing, 2006.
MARSHALL: The fucking weasels.
LARRY: Marsh.
MARSHALL: Now they want a fucking office meeting, the fucking weasels.
LARRY: I know it looks bad.
MARSHALL: Wine and dine us for fifteen fucking months, then the day after we submit our fucking proposal suddenly it’s fucking crumbling office brutalism in the fucking outskirts.
LARRY: It could be circumstantial, I mean, uh, I dunno, maybe they ran outta the food budget.
MARSHALL: You ever been dumped, Larry?
LARRY: I don’t, uh—
MARSHALL: I’ve been dumped. I’ve been dumped a couple of times. That surprise you?
LARRY: Uh.
MARSHALL: Every time I got dumped, Larry, you know where the bitch took me? To a neutral zone. That’s what’s happening here, Larry. This is a Dear John letter. This is a ‘it’s not you, it’s me and my latent daddy trauma.’
LARRY: I’m just saying, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, it could be unrelated.
MARSHALL: Oh, get your head of your fucking ass, Larry, I’ll tell you exactly what is going on here, we delivered a fucking weak-ass fucking parse-list filter for motherfucking porn—on your fucking instruction I might add—and now, okay, we’re getting dumped, we’re gonna lose the consultancy to some goddamn Chinese monkeys who can adequately copy my fucking IP.
LARRY: There was no guarantee—
MARSHALL: It’s our fucking IP, Larry. It’s ours.
LARRY: That’s interesting.
MARSHALL: What is?
LARRY: Well, a second ago, you’re all ‘my IP’ this, ‘my IP’ that, now you’re saying ‘our IP’, it’s just interesting. It’s an interesting thing I observed.
MARSHALL: What is this, Larry? Is this an attempt at, at passive aggression? Is my outsized ego hampering your—you can get fucked, Larry. You told me to withhold my revolutionary fucking schematic, and you’re the one getting butthurt? You can get fucked, Larry. You can get brutally sodomized. You can get ass-fucked with a rusted fucking—
(DEPUTY MINISTER GAO enters.)
LARRY: Minister Gao, so good to see you! And …
(He notices the Translator.)
THE TRANSLATOR: Don’t mind me, I’m just the translator.
LARRY: Right. (to the Minister) Thank you for the wonderful dinner. I’m still full.
THE TRANSLATOR: He thanks you for dinner and jokes that he is still full.
他感谢您的晚餐，还开玩笑地说他现在还饱着呢。
Tā gǎnxiè nín de wǎncān, hái kāiwánxiàode shuō tā xiànzài hái bǎozhe ne.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Tell him the restaurant we will eat at next time is even better.
告诉他，我们下次去一个更好的餐厅。
Gàosùtā, wǒmén xìacì qù yígè gènghǎo de cāntīng.
THE TRANSLATOR: The Minister says the restaurant you will eat at next time is even better.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Better century eggs!
那家的松花蛋更好吃。
Nǎ jiāde sōnghuādàn gènghǎo chī.
THE TRANSLATOR: More culinary delights. (to the audience) What the Minister actually said was ‘better century eggs’ but given Marshall’s aversion to them, I thought this was more appropriate.
MARSHALL: (to Larry) See if you can get anything out of this / fuckin’ weasel.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the Minister) He is saying ‘see if you—’
他在说：看你能不能--
Tā zài shuō: kàn nǐ néngbùnéng.
MARSHALL: Uh—don’t translate that.
LARRY: Marsh. Come on.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the audience) This is a good moment to mention that there are two kinds of translators.
MARSHALL: What, like she knows the word ‘weasel’.
THE TRANSLATOR: Those who believe in normative ethics—
MARSHALL: Go on, ask her.
THE TRANSLATOR:—and those who don’t.
MARSHALL: Ask her if she knows the word ‘weasel’.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Is there a problem?
出问题了吗？
Chūwèntí le ma？
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the audience) I, for one, am something of a … chaotic neutral. That is why I’m about to inform the Minister that these men are conspiring to extract information from her. (to the Minister) They’re discussing their strategy for this meeting.
他们正在讨论这个会议的策略。
Tāmen zhèngzài tǎolùn zhège huìyì de cèlüè.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: What are they saying?
讨论什么？
Tǎolùn shénme？
THE TRANSLATOR: They intend to ask you about something.
他们准备问您一件事。
Tāmen zhǔnbèi wèn nín yíjiàn shì.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: About what?
什么事？
Shénme shi?
THE TRANSLATOR: They didn’t say.
他们没说。
Tāmen méi shuō.
LARRY: Is there a problem?
THE TRANSLATOR: Not at all. The Minister invites you to take a seat. (to the Minister) They’re asking you to take a seat.
他们请您就坐。
Tāmen qǐng nín jiùzuò.
LARRY: Thank you, xie xie.
MARSHALL: We tread carefully.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (to the Translator) We should tread carefully.
我们应该谨慎行事。
Wǒmen yīnggāi jǐnshèn xíngshì.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the audience) We’re currently witnessing something I call ‘philological parallelism’.
MARSHALL: Don’t show our hand.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (to the Translator) Don’t disclose anything.
不要透露任何东西。
Búyào tòulù rènhé dōngxī.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the audience) They’re saying the same thing.
MARSHALL: (to the Translator) We’re ready.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the audience) They’re ready. (to the Minister) They’re ready.
他们准备好了。
Tāmen zhǔnbèi hǎole.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Tell him we’re ready.
告诉他我们准备好了。
Gàosu tā wǒmen zhǔnbèi hǎole.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to the guys) She’s ready. (to the audience) We’re ready.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: First, / we would like to say we are very impressed with your work.
首先，/我们想要说，我们对你的工作印象十分深刻。
Shǒuxiān,/wǒmen xiǎng yào shuō, wǒmen duì nǐ de gōngzuò yìnxiàng shífēn shēnkè.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) First, we would like to say we are very impressed with your work so far.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: The Ministry / feels that the Comprehensive Exhibition on Targeting Harmful and Obscene Materials in Chinese Information System was a great success.
我部/认为，针对中国信息系统里有害淫秽内容的综合展览很 成功。
Wǒ bú rènwéi, zhēnduì Zhōngguó xìnxīxìtoňglǐ yǒuhài yínhuì nèiróng de zōnghé zhǎnlǎn hěn chénggōng.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) The ministry feels that the Comprehensive Exhibition on Targeting Harmful and Obscene Materials in Chinese Information System was a great success.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Our purpose for calling this meeting / today is to start a dialog about the possibility of contract extension between the Ministry of Public Security and ONYS Systems.
我们今天开会的目的/是讨论公安部和ONYS系统是否能延续 合同。
Wǒmen jīntiān kāihuì de mùdì shì tǎolùn Gōngānbù hé ONYS xìtoňg shìfǒu néng yánxù hétong.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) Our purpose for calling this meeting today is to discuss the possibility of contract extension between the Ministry of Public Security and ONYS Systems.
MARSHALL: (to Larry) That’s it. That’s the Dear John.
THE TRANSLATOR: He / said—
他/说—
Tā shuō—
MARSHALL: Don’t translate that. It’s the Dear John, Larry.
LARRY: It doesn’t sound like a Dear John, it sounds like an offer on the table.
MARSHALL: We wouldn’t be here if there was a genuine offer, Larry, we’d be eating fucking dim sum, signing the dotted line. They’ve sent a mid-level bureaucrat to keep us haggling over the fine print for a couple of months, so they can get us to do some unpaid labor training their guys to implement our fucking schematics, and then they’re gonna dump us.
LARRY: That is completely paranoid.
MARSHALL: No, no. We tried it your way. The only thing these people understand is a good deal. Time to sell them something. (to the Minister) Respectfully, uh, Minister, we weren’t entirely happy with the outcome of the Exhibition.
LARRY: (warning) Marsh.
MARSHALL: (to the Translator) Translate that.
THE TRANSLATOR: They’re saying they weren’t happy with the outcome of the Exhibition.
他们在说他们对展览取得的收入不是很满意。
Tāmen zài shuō tāmen duì zhǎnlǎn qǔdéde shōurù búshi heň mǎnyì.
LARRY: What are you doing?
MARSHALL: (to the Minister) We feel the limited scope of this consultation, has limited us in terms of, uh, our ability to address some of the more global issues with your system.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) They feel that the limited scope of this consultation has limited their work, they want to address bigger issues with your system.
他们认为这次咨询的范围限制了他们的工作。他们想指出你 们系统里更主要的问题。
Tāmen rènwéi zhècì zīxún de fànwéi xiànzhì le tāmende gōngzuò. Tāmen xiǎng zhǐchū nǐmen xìtǒnglǐ gèng zhǔyào de wèntí.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (smiling) The insolence.
傲慢。
Àomàn.
THE TRANSLATOR: (out) She thinks he’s insolent.
Gabrielle Chan.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: What sort of issues?
什么样的问题？
Shénmeyàng de wèntí?
THE TRANSLATOR: What sort of issues?
MARSHALL: We believe that efficiency is a much larger issue than we were able to fully address with our parse-list system for, uh, ‘harmful and obscene materials’, and, again respectfully, we think—if we were to become involved in Golden Shield, more thoroughly, in the lead-up to the Olympics—we could outline a new network topology, that would be much more efficient.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) He believes efficiency is a much larger issue. If their contract were to be renewed during the Olympics, they could design a system that would be much more efficient.
他认为效率是最大的问题。如果合同在奥运会期间续签， 他们应该能设计一个更有效率的系统。
Tā rènwéi xiàolǜ shì zuì dàde wèntí. Rúguǒ hétong zài Aòyùnhuì qījiān xùqiān, tāmen yīnggāi néng shèjì yígè gèngyǒuxiàolü de xìtoňg.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (smiling, muttered to the Translator) This is the first time I’m hearing any of this.
他们从来没有说过。
Tāmen cónglái méiyoǔ shuōguò.
THE TRANSLATOR: (out) This is the first time she’s hearing any of this.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: Perhaps there is some confusion about the goals of our project. The Ministry wants to increase efficiency through the refinement and modernization of our existing system. We value your expertise but we are not soliciting an American version of the Chinese internet.
或许我们项目的目标有些模糊，但是我们想完善我们现有的 系统，使其现代化，从而提高效率。虽然你们的专业知识值 得肯定，但是我们并不需要一个美国版本的中国网络。
Huòxǔ wǒmen xiàngmù de mùbiāo yǒuxiē móhu, dànshì wǒmen xiǎng wánshàn wǒmen xiànyǒude xìtǒng. Shǐ qí xiàndàihuà cóngér tígāo xiàolǜ. Suīrán nǐmende zhuānyèzhīshi zhídékěndìng，dànshì wǒmen bìng bù xūyào yígè Měiguó bǎnběn de Zhōngguó wǎngluò.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) Perhaps there is some confusion on the part of your company about the goals of the Scientific Development policy. The Ministry seeks to increase efficiency through the refinement and modernization of our existing system. We value your expertise but we are not soliciting an American version of the Chinese internet.
MARSHALL: Respectfully, Minister, that’s the thing, I’m having some difficulty working under the auspices of a development policy I’ve been given next to no information about.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) We are working under a policy we have been given no information about.
关于我们遵守的政策，我们什么都不知道。
Guānyú wǒmen zūnshǒu de zhèngcè, wǒmen shénme doū bùzhīdaò.
LARRY: (hissed) Marsh.
MARSHALL: If there was some transparency around your goals for this project, for Golden Shield, other than, you know, to ‘make efficient’, then maybe we could provide some actionable solutions.
THE TRANSLATOR: (out) This isn’t going well. I’ll just say he wants to know the goals. (beat) He’d like some clarification on the goals for the project.
他希望知道项目的明确目标。
Tā xīwàng zhīdào xiàngmù de míngquè mùbiāo.
Beat.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (to the Translator) Put up the slide.
打开幻灯片。
Dǎkāi huàndēngpiàn.
THE TRANSLATOR: (to Larry, Marshall) She’s asked me to put up the slide.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: The primary goals / of the Golden Shield Project are as follows:
金顿工程的主要目标如下:
Jīndùn gōngchéng de zhǔyào mùbiāo rúxià:
THE TRANSLATOR: The primary goals of the Golden Shield Project are as follows:
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: To increase China’s digital security.
加强中国的数据安全。
Jiāqiáng Zhōngguó de shùjù ānquán.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) To increase China’s digital security.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: To target superstitious, pornographic, violent and other harmful information.
针对迷信，淫秽，暴力还有其它的有害信息。
Zhēnduì míxìn, yínhuì, bàolì háiyǒu qítāde yǒuhài xìnxī.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) To target superstitious, pornographic, violent and other harmful information.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: And to combat internet crime by terrorist organizations like Zhuangzi and other hostile actors.
另外还要严打由恐怖组织比如说庄子和其他反华分子造成的 网络犯罪。
Lìng wài há yào yán dǎ yóu koňg bù zǔ zhī bǐ rú shuō Zhuāngzǐ hé qí tā fǎn húa fèn zǐ zào chéng de wǎng luò fàn zuì.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) And to combat internet crime by terrorist organizations like Zhuangzi and other hostile actors.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: We can make this document available to their board.
我们可以给他们董事会提供这个文件。
Wǒmen kěyǐ gěi tāmen doňgshìhuì tígōng zhège wénjiàn.
THE TRANSLATOR: She says they are happy to make this document available to your board before you continue with these meetings.
LARRY: Thank you, for all of this, we will—we will definitely pass this document on.
THE TRANSLATOR: He says he would like to take this document with him.
他说他想把这份文件带走。
Tāshuō tā xiǎng bǎ zhèfèn wénjiàn dàizoǔ.
LARRY: (to Marshall) You happy? They’re sharing their Orwellian goals.
MARSHALL: She’s stalling. (to the Translator) Don’t translate that.
THE TRANSLATOR: Of course. (to the Minister) They think you’re stalling. (to the audience) I translated it.
他们认为您正在拖延时间。
Tāmen rènwéi nín zhèngzài tuōyán shíjiān.
MARSHALL: Look. Minister. I’m gonna level with you.
LARRY: (noise)
MARSHALL: You want a heavy-duty firewall. That’s a fact. Right now, it’s real slow. That’s the second fact. Now here’s the third fact: during the Olympics, it’s gonna get a helluvalot slower. And what I’m saying is, eventually you’re gonna have to confront the fact that the problem with the system—is the system itself. So to solve that problem, you have to change the system.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) You want a heavy-duty firewall. That’s a fact. At the moment, it’s slow. That’s the second fact. Third fact: during the Olympics, it’s going to get slower. You have to understand that the problem with your system is the system itself. To solve that problem, you have to change the system.
首先，你们想要个强大而坚固的防火墙。其次，现在系统比 较慢。最后，在奥运会期间，系统会更加慢。你们要认清 产生系统的问题是系统的本身。你们要解决这个问题的话， 必须改换系统。
Shǒuxiān, nǐmen xiǎngyào gè qiángdà ér jiāngù de fánghuǒqiáng. Qícì xiànzài xìtǒng bǐjiào màn. Zuìhòu zài Aòyùnhuì qījiān, xìtoňg huì gèngjiāmàn 。Nǐmen yào rènqīng chǎnshēng xìtǒng de wèntí shì xìtǒng běnshēn。Nǐmen yào jiějué zhège wèntí de huà, bìxū gǎihuàn xìtoňg.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: (rising) We do not believe our internet needs to be changed. Thank you for offering your professional opinion and for this productive discussion.
改换系统这个想法，我们并不赞成。谢谢您提供专业的建 议，并且参加这次高效的讨论。
Gǎihuàn xìtǒng zhège xiǎngfǎ, wǒmen bìng bú zànchéng. Xièxie nín tígōng zhuānyè de jiànyì。Bìngqiě cānjiā zhècì gāoxiào de tǎolùn.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) We do not believe our internet needs to be changed. But thank you for offering your professional opinion and for this productive discussion.
MARSHALL: Wait, okay, tell her—that was the wrong—we’re not proposing to change the system, okay, would you translate that? I’m not trying to change anything.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) He says he’s not trying to change anything.
他说他什么东西都不换。
Tā shuō tā shénme dōngxi dōu dū bù huàn.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: He is saying that our system has to be rebuilt?
他的意思是说我们的系统需要重建吗？
Tāde yìsi shì shuō wǒmen de xìtoňg xūyào chóngjiàn ma?
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) You are saying that our system has to be rebuilt?
MARSHALL: Not rebuilt, uh—iterated. Developed.
THE TRANSLATOR: (staggered) Not rebuilt. Developed.
不是重建，是改善。
Búshì chóngjiàn, shì gǎishàn.
MARSHALL: It is my professional opinion—having reviewed the latencies in your national AS topology—
THE TRANSLATOR: It is my professional opinion—having reviewed the latencies in your system—
我给的专业建议是针对你们系统延迟的问题—
Wǒ gěide zhuānyè jiànyì shì zhēnduì nǐmen xìtoňg yánchíde dewèntí—
LARRY: Marsh.
MARSHALL:—that what we can help you to do—that what it is you frankly need to do—is to decentralize your firewall.
Beat.
TRANSLATOR: A note about the word ‘decentralize’.
There are two ways I can translate ‘decentralize’ into Mandarin. The first, 分散 (fen san), means something like disperse, scatter. The second, closer to decentralize, is 下放 (xia fang). Unfortunately, like many Mandarin verbs, it has multiple meanings: to let go, put aside, do away with.
Now, another translator, in an attempt to preserve Marshall’s phraseology, might here tell the Minister that Marshall intends to disperse, or worse do away with, the national firewall. This would derail the meeting.
Happily, I am not that translator.
You see, I don’t just understand the literalities of Marshall’s proposal. I see the whole loop. Marshall McLaren is proposing an ingenious three-tiered firewall, one that will exponentially increase the government’s ability to filter and inspect the online activities of their citizenry. It will come to be called the Great Firewall, and finding ways to climb it will become a national pastime.
In other words, Marshall is talking about an increase in control, an increase in efficiency, effected through decentralization but not resulting in it. So all I have to do is change one little word. I turn to the Minister, and I say:
(to the Minister) He wants to centralize the firewall. He wants to centralize the firewall.
他想构建一个更集中的防火墙。
Tā xiǎng gòujiàn yīgè gèng jízhōng de fánghuǒqiáng.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: More centralized?
更集中?
Gèng jízhōng?
THE TRANSLATOR: (back to the Minister) That’s what he said.
他是这样说的。
Tā shì zhèyàng shuōde.
Because in this case, paradoxically, centralize is the more efficient translation.
DEPUTY MINISTER GAO: We … could consider that.
这一点 … … 我们可以考虑。
Zhè yì diǎn … … wǒmen kěyǐ kǎolǜ.
THE TRANSLATOR: The Ministry would be interested in reviewing such a proposal.
LARRY: Uh. They would?
MARSHALL: They would?
THE TRANSLATOR: Dallas, 2015.
JULIE: Now to be honest, we don’t have an extensive paper trail of ONYS’s dealings with the Ministry, for the simple reason that these dealings were mostly conducted in China.
But a document we do have access to, our exhibit A, is a leaked ONYS document. And specifically, I’m going to direct your attention to the third bullet point that features in that document, a bullet point that reads as follows: ‘to combat internet crime by terrorist organizations like Zhuangzi and other hostile actors.’
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing, 2012.
EVA: Can I, uh, if I ask you a question, can you be like, really honest?
JULIE: That’s sort of my default.
EVA: Is this like … are you actually trying to win this case? Or is it, like, a symbolic gesture?
JULIE: Um, fuck you.
EVA: Hey, that’s like an honest question, it’s not loaded.
JULIE: The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.
EVA: Because, like, I’m no expert—
JULIE: You’re really not.
THE TRANSLATOR: You can probably guess, but, uh, roughly, ‘you’re stupid’.
Beat.
EVA: Forget it.
JULIE: Hey, no, Evie—
EVA: No, no, I can be your ventriloquist dummy for a week, it’s what I signed up for, so.
JULIE: No, fuck, it’s my bad, dude. My brand of humor is—I can be a little—
EVA: Mercenary?
JULIE: I was gonna say … zesty.
Beat.
JULIE: Hey, it’s really different, right?
EVA: What?
JULIE: This area. It’s like … Singapore or something.
EVA: Oh. Yeah. Gentrified.
JULIE: Definitely.
EVA: And like, all this nightlife? I don’t remember, like, bars.
JULIE: In full fairness, we were—
EVA: Yeah, no, sure, that’s not the sort of thing you notice, as a kid.
JULIE: And I suspect the absence of someone screaming her head off at us—
EVA: Yeah, that probably contributes to the different … atmosphere.
Beat.
THE TRANSLATOR: I feel this is the point to interject with some context.
Julie and Eva spent their childhood primarily in suburban D.C. but took yearly trips back to Beijing to visit their extended family. When Julie left for college, Eva, being the younger sibling, was still in middle school. During this time, the family moved back to Beijing, where Eva completed her schooling. Hence Eva’s fluency in Mandarin, and Julie’s comparative illiteracy.
The woman they’re currently referring to is their mother, who was, by her own metrics, an excellent parent, but by all other accounts, a violently unstable petty tyrant. She is the source of Eva’s suicidal ideation and dysmorphia, as well as Julie’s overwhelming emotional paralysis.
We won’t speak of the father, because, of course, they never did.
EVA: So who are we meeting tomorrow?
JULIE: Amanda, she’s like the NGO point-person on this, she’s the one that found the document. Wednesday, we train to Yingcheng.
EVA: To meet him.
JULIE: Right.
EVA: And he’s the—
JULIE: In the wheelchair, yeah. (beat) What do you do for money?
Beat.
EVA: Does it matter?
JULIE: No.
JULIE: Unless it’s morally compromised.
EVA: Is there a legal definition for ‘morally compromised’? (beat) Julie, you sort of … don’t have the right to that information.
JULIE: Since when?
Beat.
EVA: I’m getting room service, you want anything?
JULIE: My sister back?
EVA: Well, she’s dead. You’re getting a sandwich.
THE TRANSLATOR: Palo Alto, 2006.
JANE: (closing the document) We’re fine.
MARSHALL: (to Larry) See?
JANE: He was right to bring it to me, Marshall. I’m your Chief Legal Officer.
LARRY: We’re fine?
JANE: I mean, it’s not ideal. It’s decidedly unideal.
LARRY: But this bullet point, ‘Zhuangzi and other hostile actors’—the fact that they showed us this, I mean, they’re talking about targeting dissidents, doesn’t that, like, open us up to anything? Like, accusations of … anything?
JANE: By whom?
LARRY: Like, I dunno, the UN?
JANE: You mean the ICC?
THE TRANSLATOR: International Criminal Court.
LARRY: I don’t … know?
JANE: The tribunal responsible for prosecuting individuals guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide?
LARRY: Yes?
JANE: Have you committed any genocides lately?
LARRY: I don’t … think so?
JANE: You’re fine.
LARRY: Okay, but—
JANE: Larry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret about international law. The only effectual branch of international arbitration—the only practicable branch—is the one I specialize in. Corporate law. This means that the mechanisms of international arbitration have been built to serve corporate interests. In other words, there are several mechanisms by which we, as a multinational, can take someone to trial. There are essentially none that allow anybody to prosecute us. So what I’m telling you is: we’re fine.
MARSHALL: I could kiss you.
JANE: That would be wildly inappropriate and I would sue you.
MARSHALL: Nah you wouldn’t.
JANE: No, I’d miss your winning personality.
LARRY: But we’re fine?
JANE: (the PowerPoint document) Now, regarding this question of the board—
MARSHALL: No. Nope.
LARRY: We have to, Marsh.
MARSHALL: No, no fucking way. No board.
LARRY: We have to? Right? Jane?
JANE: Gentlemen. Please. (beat) As your CLO, this is my suggestion. What you’ll do is, you’ll call a board meeting, and you’ll bring the board this document, this PowerPoint.
MARSHALL: But why—
JANE: Because, Marshall, you’ve just told a bunch of Chinese bureaucrats that you’d show the board this document, and it’s generally a good idea to keep the promises you’ve made to Chinese bureaucrats.
MARSHALL:… that’s a fair point, Bollman.
JANE: Thank you. However, as your CLO, I also recommend you bury it in a stack of paperwork. How long’s the contract?
LARRY: Around, uh, three hundred pages.
JANE: Perfect. Stick in the Appendix. And this is the most important part. Larry.
Josh McConville (with Sophie Ross obscured in foreground).
LARRY: Yeah?
JANE: After the meeting?
LARRY: Yeah?
JANE: It’d be unfortunate if that document didn’t make its way into your records.
LARRY: Huh? Oh. Like—shred ’em?
JANE: As your CLO, I would never tell you to destroy material evidence related to a contract. I’m just saying, if due to a clerical error, that particular appendix were to go astray, well, that would be a shame.
LARRY: Wait, so—am I shredding them?
MARSHALL: Yeah.
JANE: Absolutely not.
LARRY: No?
MARSHALL: No, Larry. You’re not shredding them.
LARRY: Oh. So—
JANE: Definitely don’t shred them.
MARSHALL: For fuck’s—Larry, shred every fucking copy.
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing, 2012.
EVA: I’ll have the Chicken with Fried Noodles, and she’ll have—
我要雞肉炒麵，她要—
Wǒyào jīroù chǎomiàn, tā yào—
JULIE: (pointing to the glass bottle) Can we get some bottled water, with a seal, I don’t know where you’ve gotten this from.
EVA: She just wants a plastic bottle with a seal, sorry.
她只想要矿泉水/密封的，麻煩你了。
Tā zhǐ xiǎng yào kuàngquán shuǐ/mìfēng de, máfan nǐle.
JULIE: I’ll have the shrimp fried rice, don’t put any MSG in it, and I know you’ll say you don’t use MSG, but then I leave with a migraine, so can you actually not put MSG in it? Thanks.
THE TRANSLATOR: Monosodium glutamate, food enhancer, rumored to cause dehydration and headaches.
EVA: You shouldn’t …
THE TRANSLATOR: Studies do not support this.
JULIE: What?
EVA: Forget it.
JULIE: No, what?
EVA: You can’t be so blunt with people here.
JULIE: I’m American. We have a global reputation to uphold.
EVA: Well, you look Chinese, people assume you’re Chinese.
JULIE: I should fucking hope not. Pass me the hot sauce.
Beat.
EVA: Hey, you remember the food matching?
JULIE: Hm?
EVA: You know, the matching thing? With food? You remember this?
JULIE: No.
EVA: Whenever we, like … whenever she served us a plate of something, to be shared between the two of us, she’d insist on absolute equality, so we had to count the grapes, or, or the peas, to make sure we got exactly our share. And she never put odd numbers on the plate.
JULIE: Uh … that didn’t happen.
EVA: No, she did this till I was like six.
JULIE: Well, I was there, I was older, that didn’t happen. There was a time where you did that, you counted what you ate, but that’s ’cause you—
EVA: No, this was earlier, like way earlier.
JULIE: Then you’re conflating things.
EVA: No, I—
JULIE: Also can we not—let’s not suddenly treat her with nostalgia, now she’s—
EVA: Jules.
JULIE:—fuck, as though literal decomposition somehow reduces her level of fucking toxicity—
EVA: That’s not what I—
(Amanda enters.)
AMANDA: I’m late, ugh.
JULIE: No, it’s, you’re all good. Uh, Eva, Amanda Pearson, International Project Manager for the Digital Freedom Fund. Amanda, Eva Chen, our translator.
AMANDA: What, you guys sisters?
EVA: We, uh, we are, actually.
AMANDA: Oh, for real? You hired your sister?
JULIE: Yep.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘Regretfully.’
AMANDA: That’s convenient, your sister’s a translator. Nice. Well, nice to meet you, Eva.
EVA: Yeah, ditto.
JULIE: So, any word?
AMANDA:… it’s not good. We’re down a couple.
JULIE: How many?
AMANDA: Of the fifteen I spoke to, five of them are willing to sign on as Does, three willing to be named plaintiffs.
JULIE: Damnit, seriously?
AMANDA: A lot of these people are still under close surveillance, Julie, it’s a big ask.
JULIE: Fuck. Well, okay. Fuck, uh. Any of the three willing to travel?
AMANDA: One.
JULIE: The professor?
AMANDA: Yeah, and I gotta say, I think, from what little he’s told me, I think his testimony would be pretty compelling.
JULIE: He’s willing, I mean he’ll testify?
AMANDA: We’ll have to negotiate that tomorrow. There’s some kind of—he’s on board in principle, but there’s some kind of reservation.
JULIE: Safety?
AMANDA: He wouldn’t say over the phone, I think it’s best we discuss it in person.
JULIE: Okay, uh, what about the document? Can we authenticate it?
AMANDA: Well …
JULIE: Amanda! Seriously?
AMANDA: I mean—it’s WikiLeaks, they have a near-perfect record of document authentication.
JULIE: We can’t get up in front of a Dallas jury and say WikiLeaks has a—most of these people won’t know the difference between WikiLeaks and Wikipedia!
EVA: Wait, so, you need to, like, authenticate the document?
JULIE: Eva, I keep telling you, you don’t have to—
AMANDA: Jules, it’s beyond reasonable doubt that the Head of China Ops saw it.
JULIE: Why don’t you let me be the judge on what reasonable doubt entails here? WikiLeaks is not beyond reasonable doubt.
EVA: Wait, this thing was presented at a board meeting?
JULIE: Evie.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘Shut up.’
EVA: And there aren’t any other copies?
AMANDA: Not with this appendix. For all we know they shredded the rest.
EVA: Oh. Well, it’s just, uh—maybe this is stupid, but this thing is dated, there’s a date in the header.
JULIE: Eva!
AMANDA: No, Julie—she’s—
EVA: Don’t—like—don’t companies with public stock, don’t they have to publish the minutes of board meetings? So, like, couldn’t you cross-reference the agenda of the board meeting with the document to prove it’s real? And couldn’t you check the attendance and prove the guy was there, so he had to have seen it?
Beat.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIE: Huh.
AMANDA: You go to law school?
JULIE: That’s, uh.
EVA: No.
JULIE: Shit.
EVA: I majored in Asia Studies.
JULIE: That’s good.
AMANDA: Uh, what kinda jobs do you get with that?
EVA:… this, I guess?
JULIE: Evie.
EVA: Yeah?
JULIE: That’s fucking good.
TRANSLATOR: ‘I love you.’
THE TRANSLATOR: Dallas, 2015.
JULIE: Now, everyone in this room agrees that there are human rights abuses going on in China. That’s a well-documented fact.
THE TRANSLATOR: There’s actually a great deal of debate about the / extent—okay.
JULIE: But the Defense is going to argue that a single bullet point is insufficient evidence of ONYS’s criminal collusion. After all, this is the only copy we have access to. How can we prove that Mr McLaren and his colleagues actually saw this document?
Well, let’s look at our exhibits.
Exhibit A, this bullet point, was presented to ONYS board members on July 31st, 2006. Now, because we have access to the public minutes of this board meeting, which is our Exhibit B, you can also see clearly, here, that Marshall McLaren, the head of China Operations, is listed as being in attendance. What does this all mean?
It means Mr McLaren not only saw this document, but he saw it before their contract was renewed. Which means he not only helped to build the Golden Shield, but that he did it in the full knowledge that this was one of the Ministry’s central goals. That they specifically and explicitly intended on targeting Zhuangzi activists.
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing, 2012.
AMANDA: It’s sort of ingenious.
EVA: Well, you spend enough time with lawyers—
AMANDA: Dude, you just made our case. Take the compliment.
EVA: Ha, okay, thanks.
AMANDA: So this was a, uh, surprising WeChat request.
EVA: Well, like, I don’t know, it’s our only night in Beijing, there’s all these bars around, you seemed cool, so, I figured, uh, you’d be the sort of person I’d wanna get trashed and go dancing with.
AMANDA: Can I just clarify something here?
EVA: What?
AMANDA: Like, is this a drink, or like, a drink?
EVA: Oh, no, yes, I am definitely trying to fuck you.
AMANDA: Okay, good, I thought so.
EVA: Yeah, there should be no ambiguity about that.
AMANDA: So, okay, I wish people could just—
EVA: Right?
AMANDA: Because it’s like, there’s enough miscommunication in the world, I don’t want to spend all night reading between the lines and like, searching for a sign, or symbol, like, a visual metaphor for whether or not you want to stick your fingers in me, because if you just like say, upfront, what you mean, then like, you don’t need to translate, you know?
THE TRANSLATOR: I guess I should go.
AMANDA: So I take it Julie’s not coming.
EVA: No, she’s, uh, she’d be sort of pissed if she knew I was doing this.
AMANDA: Does she not—
EVA: Oh, no, no. That’s not—no, she thinks I fuck her colleagues to piss her off.
AMANDA: Do you?
EVA: Uh. Kind of … so, her partner—not like her partner in life, her partner in law, Richard—
AMANDA: Oh yeah, Richard, I know Rich. You and Rich, that’s, uh, that’s quite a … I mean, not to cast aspersions, he’s a lovely guy but, uh, you can do better.
AMANDA: A lot better.
Beat.
EVA: So tell me about your exciting and fabulous job.
AMANDA: My job, uh, my job. It’s a lot of advocacy, a lot of … ranting, raving, tweeting. Not a lot of downtime.
EVA: Yeah, I get that vibe.
AMANDA: I work myself to death, it’s pretty unsustainable. Blah, enough me, is this, like, your full-time gig? Being your sister’s translator?
EVA: Oh. Uh. Well I’m, I just graduated so—I’m between—
THE TRANSLATOR: Should I come back?
EVA:—actually, uh, I’m—I’m a sex worker, I work in the sex industry.
THE TRANSLATOR: Oh.
AMANDA: Oh.
THE TRANSLATOR: Guess not.
EVA: Yeah. I mean, informally? I’m not—uh—
AMANDA: If you don’t mind, uh, what exactly …
EVA: I date people.
AMANDA: Oh.
EVA: Uh, specifically, I date these guys, these older guys, rich white guys, and uh, they pay for my rent and my clothes and my food and uh, my everything.
AMANDA: Oh. So you’re like a—
EVA: Yeah. Yep.
AMANDA: Do you … do you fuck them?
EVA: Um, I didn’t really intend to, when I started out, but then one of them offered me a lot of money, so now, yeah, I do.
AMANDA: All of them?
EVA: One of them I just give blow jobs to, because he’s in like his seventies.
AMANDA: Oh.
EVA: Yep. That’s uh, what I do for money.
AMANDA: Well, hey, uh, no judgment.
EVA: Oh, feel free to judge me, I’m a terrible person.
AMANDA: I don’t really know you at all, but you don’t seem like a terrible person.
EVA: I’m sort of like a generally decent person masking like a depraved sociopath.
AMANDA: I feel like this is your way of telling me I shouldn’t date you.
EVA: Yeah, it’s a, uh, tactic.
AMANDA: I guess it’s a good thing you live in D.C.
EVA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And I live in Sydney.
EVA: Yep.
AMANDA: And this is our only night in Beijing.
EVA: Guess so.
AMANDA: Well. (downing her drink) I feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to powder my nose.
THE TRANSLATOR: ‘Meet me in the bathroom.’
THE TRANSLATOR: Dallas, 2015.
JULIE: Mr McLaren, I get the sense you’re not a fan of ambiguities, so the next question I’m going to ask you is going to be a wholly unambiguous question, a question you can answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, do you think you can do that for me?
MARSHALL: I think I can manage that.
JULIE: Did you see this document at the ONYS board meeting on July 31st, 2006?
Beat.
MARSHALL: I don’t remember.
JULIE: You don’t remember.
MARSHALL: No.
JULIE: I’ll remind you you’re under oath.
MARSHALL: Yeah, I’m aware of that.
JULIE: You can remember the dollar value, per share, of your stocks in 2005, but you can’t remember seeing this document?
MARSHALL: I mean, come on, we’re talking about a bullet point. Can you remember any bullet points you read a decade ago?
JULIE: But you received this document directly from the CCP.
MARSHALL: Not that I recall, not specifically.
Beat.
MARSHALL: Look, the fact is—
JULIE: Mr McLaren, do you / seriously—
MARSHALL: The fact is that this document, it was one of hundreds—probably thousands—of documents that came across my desk while we were negotiating the contract renewal. I mean, to be honest with you, it was probably thrown in the packet by an intern. God knows if I ever read it.
JULIE: Wouldn’t you say that displays corporate negligence on your part?
Beat.
MARSHALL: I guess that’s for the jury to decide.
JULIE: Actually it’s for you to answer.
Beat.
MARSHALL: From where I sit, Ms Chen, I made the internet faster for 1.4 billion people. If that’s corporate negligence, then I guess I’m negligent.
Beat.
JULIE: No further questions.
THE TRANSLATOR: Beijing to Yingcheng, 2012.
JULIE: What’d you get up to last night?
EVA: Nothing. Got trashed.
EVA:… yeah.
Beat.
JULIE: I like trains.
EVA: Me too.
JULIE: Calming.
EVA: Mm.
Beat.
JULIE: You know, I thought about it. For college. Moving here. With you and Mom.
EVA: No you didn’t.
JULIE: I did. (beat) You know, I thought it might be good to … get … culturally reacclimated. So I could have, like, an actual connection to this place. (beat) Thing is, though, you look at what’s going on in this country, it doesn’t exactly inspire stirrings of national pride.
EVA: Right.
Beat.
JULIE: That was good work by the way, with the thing.
EVA: Oh. Thanks.
JULIE: You ever thought about it? Law school?
EVA: Don’t have the grades.
JULIE: Yeah, but I don’t know, there’s … courses, or, something.
EVA: Just because—forget it.
JULIE: No, what?
EVA: You don’t have to give me brownie points for doing a ‘smart thing’, Jules. I’m smart. I just don’t feel the need to, like, broadcast it all the time. (beat) It hasn’t been all fun and games, you know. Being the comparatively stupid sibling, you know.
JULIE:… Eva, you’re not—do you honestly think that?
EVA: You’re a lawyer, I’m a … whatever.
JULIE: Yeah, but, like, emotional intelligence, you’ve got me beat. I’ve got the emotional intelligence of a brick.
EVA: I mean, whatever, that’s just transactional logic. You work out what someone wants from you and what you want from them. Then you make the transaction.
JULIE: Christ, dude. Go to law school. Make that logic billable by the hour.
EVA: Yeah. Maybe. (beat) I’ll look into it.
JULIE: You should. (laughing) Transactional logic. You’re pretty messed up, kid, you know that?
EVA: Pot, meet kettle.
JULIE: Ha, yeah. No shit.
Beat.
EVA: I mean, like, all things considered. Our childhood. We’re pretty well-adjusted.
JULIE: Speak for yourself, man. I’m pretty …
THE TRANSLATOR: Damaged.
EVA: Yeah, well, I’m.
THE TRANSLATOR: Also damaged.
JULIE: But you know, we’re … you know.
EVA: Yeah.
THE TRANSLATOR: Not sure on this one. I think it’s expressing a kind of … solidarity. Or yearning.
Beat.
EVA: So if this guy’s testimony, if it’s compelling, it could make your case, right?
JULIE: Pretty much. Dao wheels his wheelchair to the center.
EVA: So what do you need him to say?
JULIE: That he’s suffering.
END OF ACT 1.
