The Foreign Service Journal, April 2012

10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 2 Lost in Translation On Feb. 21 th e People’s Daily and Global Times p osted an article, “U.S. Embassy Staff Test Totally ‘Fake.’” The article by Yan Shuang reports: “A pic- ture showing a written exam, which in- cludes nine questions concerning sub- jects like history, sociology, political sci- ence, and evenmedicine and engineer- ing, has been circulating on microblogs and online forums.” The “picture” is a Chinese transla- tion of part of the Foreign Service exam parody published in AFSA’s 2011 book, Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work . Apparently provoking a viral out- break of consternation, the test ques- tions were reposted 22,000 times on Chinese online forums and microblogs by Feb. 20. “Many Web users doubted whether it could be real, since it is too difficult,” Global Times notes, adding: “U.S. em- bassy spokesman Richard Buangan made clear on his Sina microblog yes- terday that an alleged ‘recruitment test for expatriate employees at the U.S. embassy’ is fake.” According to Global Times , the questions were published in Vistastory news magazine next to an interview with former Embassy Beijing Deputy Chief of Mission Dan Picutta (who is profiled in the book). Among the translated test questions was one on medicine: “You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix.” And another onmusic: “Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.” While it is hard to imagine that such questions could be taken seriously, it does appear that the humor may have been lost in translation. Analysts intent on divining why a “not real” test would appear in a serious U.S. publication seem to have missed the joke entirely. Indeed, Yan Shuang quotes Vista- story writer Chen Jingson explaining that their information was from Inside a U.S. Embassy : “In Chapter Five they introduced this test, and we took some questions, translated them and made our list.” The Global Times also notes that the same exam was printed in the June 2008 Foreign Service Journal . AFSA posted a clarification com- ment on both news sites. It was ac- cepted by Global Times , but was taken down after a day. The same comment was accepted for review by People’s Daily but never appeared on the site. To compound the irony, the same week that the People’s Daily and Global Times were clarifying that the test was a fake, the AFSA-sanctioned Chinese translation of Inside a U.S. Embassy (2005 edition) was received at AFSA headquarters for review. With the help of Embassy Beijing, AFSA is checking that text carefully. Publication of the Chinese edition is expected in May. — Shawn Dorman, Associate Editor Haiti, Two Years after the Quake Shortly before Christmas, Presi- dent Barack Obama announced the nomination of FSO Pamela Ann White as the next U.S. ambassador to Haiti. Chief of mission in The Gambia until her nomination, Ambassador White previously served as USAID mission director in Liberia, Tanzania C YBERNOTES l t’s quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto while people are being murdered — women, children, brave young men — and houses are being destroyed. It is just despicable, and I ask, whose side are they on? They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people. — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at the Feb. 25 Friends of Syria conference in Tunis about the Russian and Chinese vetoes of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Syrian President Bashir Assad; U.S. News and World Report (www.usnews.com) .