These days in Beijing, it seems like everyone is involved with the Games one way or another. Whether you’re a flag-seller, or flag waver, the spirit is in the air as much as the presence of televisions seem to spike. You could literally go from one end of the city to the other without missing a score. Every restaurant, coffee shop, bar, fruit vendor, convenient store, not to mention malls, plaza squares, and bus stream the latest competition live. Just take five. I took five and sat down with Wang Gang, a member of the Beijing Organizing Committee for a snapshot of his Olympic life.
What’s your job title?
I’m a staff member of BOCOG (The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad).
What do you do?
On site Chinese commentating. My sports for the Beijing Olympics include track, cycling, BMX, and mountain biking. Mostly, I do consecutive translation of what the English announcer is saying.
Consecutive translation? That’s pretty impressive.
It’s actually not that hard. It’s easy when you are familiar with the sports jargon. It would be hard if I was translating a speech by an economist.
How did you get the gig? Me and most of my CUC (Communication University of China) classmates all applied for something to do during the Olympics. I sent in my application, went through an interview process, and was picked from thousands to be a commentator. Most of my classmates were selected as announcers, which means they do the intro before every event like “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the XXIX Olympiad… etc. etc.” or “Today the weather is fine, a nice 29 degrees.”
What did you have to do to prepare for your job? Just the other day I went in to do a BMX game simulation. Which basically means we screen previous games and do voice over commentating over it.
(At this point, Wang Gang was mixing in a lot of English with his Chinese) Do you realize you speak with an English accent? How did your English get so good? Trainspotting is my favorite movie. A very memorable, very impressive movie. I guess I watch a lot of English movies. I like Jude Law’s accent a lot also and try to emulate it. I’m good enough to do commentating in both English and Chinese. It’s actually my dream to become a sports commentator abroad one day. NBA, here I come.
…So, are you a volunteer? No, not at all. I’m a step above those guys. Paid employee here. I get paid about 80 RMB (about 10 dollars) a day. Enough to get me a pair of new shoes okay? I also enjoy free transportation. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, the Chinese Olympics Committee is shitting on the sweat and blood of energetic youth. It’s great.
Describe your average day for us. Normally, we have to be at the office before 8:00 am and check out by 7:00 pm. I spend a lot of time on PSP, chatting, taking sitting naps. It’s the rule for us to check in everyday though. During competition, of course, it gets busy. Also, the other day I had to pick up an English commentator 4:00 in the morning at the airport. Somebody bought a cheap ticket. So yeah, catering to the needs of foreign announcers and commentators is also part of the job description.
/Wang Gang, August 14, 2008