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Introduction: Translation as Subversion Reconsidered at a Micro-Level

The notion of translation as subversion as it emerged in translation studies is often associated with postcolonialist thinkers like Román Álvarez and África Vidal (1996), Maria Tymoczko (2014), and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2021 [1992]), who view translated literature as having a kind of subversive power. Emily Apter (2006), on the contrary, proposes the idea of untranslatability as a way to resist the homogenizing forces of translation in order to maintain the heterogeneity and uniqueness of local cultures in the face of globalization and hegemony. In contrast to the above approaches, which offer a macro-level picture of the subversive power of translation, this article presents a case of translation subverting not a nation or cultural group at the macro-level but, rather, a collective opinion towards an author and a translator at a micro-level.

Two similar terms—“(constructed) image” and “reputation”—are employed to refer to other people’s perceptions. Drawing on corporate branding definitions, the image of an individual is conceived here as a “sense-making picture (of a person) in the mind” of others, while their reputation is “the overall measure of how [others] perceive” them (da Camara, 2011, p. 49). In what follows, I will explore the perception of an author’s and a translator’s images on a social media platform in China and the change this perception undergoes among users of the platform.

It should be noted from the outset that an author’s and a translator’s social images are subverted through translation in different ways. The processes and consequences arising from such subversion, and why they differ, can be explained by the kinds of decision-making that translators and authors engage in, for example, a translator’s choice of text to translate or an author’s decision or consent to be translated. In addition to these decisions and choices, the dual allegiances of authors and translators influence how their images evolve, duality here referring to the perception of them serving two masters: a source-language readership, on the one hand, and a target-language readership, on the other. In what follows, the terms “subvert,” “change,” and, sometimes, “turn” are used interchangeably to describe these shifts in perception. Focusing on both the translator and author to understand changes in online opinions, my aim is to provide a micro-level analysis of the role that translation plays in the subversion of reputation.[2] The research question I seek to address is: how, amid political conflict, did public perception of an author and her translator on China’s largest microblogging platform change after the platform’s users became aware of the translation?

Methodology: Collecting and Analyzing Data from Weibo

The article is based on a specific case study, Michael Berry’s English translation of Fang Fang’s “diary”[3] about the Wuhan lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (Fang Fang, 2020a, 2020b).[4] The analysis focuses primarily on how the images of both the author and translator are constructed and represented in Weibo’s online communities. 微博 [Weibo], literally “microblog” in Chinese, is a Twitter-like social media platform that dominates China’s microblog market. Established in 2009, Weibo has long been regarded as having the potential to “serve as an instrument for social mobilization” (Harwit, 2014, p. 1085) that could allow Chinese netizens to engage in media agenda-setting (Zhang and Negro, 2013, p. 213).[5] Eleven years after its launch, Weibo’s annual report for 2020 (Weibo Data Centre, 2021) showed an average of 224 million daily active users (DAU) and 511 million monthly active users (MAU), compared to a significantly smaller user community in 2014 with 76.6 million DAU and 167 million MAU (Weibo Data Centre, 2014), when Weibo’s aforementioned potential in allowing political participation was first recognized in academia. This potential and the growing user base demonstrate the important meaning-making role that Weibo plays in Chinese society, which is why the present study mainly focuses on the images constructed in Weibo communities.

Since both Fang Fang and Berry have their own individual Weibo accounts, the analysis is based primarily on the comments under their Weibo accounts as its source of data rather than on original Weibo posts generated by other Weibo users or posts on other social media platforms. The existence of their accounts on the platform provides a direct channel of communication between them and other Weibo users. It thus creates a common platform, where, in the comment section under their posts, users can collectively express their ideas and emotions, directly address the two people concerned, and respond to each other. The sample selection of Weibo comments considered to be representative is based on the number of accumulated likes and comments at the time of access. In addition, where relevant, other data, including Weibo posts and contents from other social media platforms, are provided.

Finally, it should be noted that research based on data collected on Weibo can be limited. First, it faces difficulties of censorship and/or self-censorship. Some Weibo posts and comments gathered for this article between 2020 and 2021, for example, were later deleted or hidden from the public,[6] which means their content will prove difficult and, in some instances, impossible to find. When this is the case, the links to such content are still provided in footnotes and marked as “now deleted.” Second, analysis of data on Weibo (despite its large user community) or any other platforms can be influenced by the presence of a vocal minority potentially misrepresenting the silent majority. Unfortunately, this issue cannot be solved here but is addressed by limiting the research question in such a way as to avoid making assumptions about voices not expressed or heard.

The Wuhan Lockdown, Blame Game, and Wuhan Diary

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, proving to be a major health crisis. On 23 January 2020, the city of Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China, was locked down by the Chinese government. The Wuhan lockdown lasted until 8 April 2020, and opinions on the Chinese government’s lockdown measures vary. Some believed the government intervened positively by restricting movements to, from, and within Wuhan to stop the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, while others accused the government of putting human rights at risk (see Eve, 2020).[7]

In July 2020, the Chinese Foreign Ministry—citing Dr. Gauden Galea, the WHO Representative in China—insisted that the government’s lockdown decision was based on global safety concerns, in an attempt to demonstrate the effectiveness of lockdown measures to the international community (see Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2020, n.p.). The Ministry claimed the US was “无端指责中国人权情况 [accusing the Chinese of human rights issues out of nowhere]”,[8] an accusation referred to in The Washington Post by China’s ambassador to the US as playing the “blame game” (see Cui, 2020, n.p.). The Ministry further stated that US politicians were acting in a “政治私利至上 [political self-interest oriented]” way (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2020, n.p.). On Chinese social media platforms, many users reacted furiously to the West’s accusations of human rights violations, confirming their support for the Foreign Ministry. An example of such support is confirmed in a response to 侠客岛 [Xiake Dao], a Weibo account belonging to the People’s Daily—the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China— that published an article on “怼回去 [arguing back]” to Western criticism (Yuwen and Zaiyan, 2020, n.p.). Underneath Xiake Dao’s post, another Weibo user commented: “咱们的媒体也得大胆发声，该战斗的时候就坚决战斗，该怼的时候就坚决的怼，该给西方涂点颜料，也就给涂点颜料 [Our media should act bolder: fight when it’s needed; argue back when we have to; teach the Western world a lesson when necessary].”[9]

While many Weibo users shared their disagreement with Western opinions surrounding the Wuhan lockdown, other users expressed sympathy to those living in Wuhan. The more sympathetic comments showed an increasing interest in the conditions of hospitals, the wellbeing of patients, and everyday life in the locked down city. At the same time, several video clips circulated on Weibo, claiming to be real life scenes from within Wuhan’s hospitals, showing overcrowded corridors with so-called dead bodies lying on the floors. Shared thousands of times, some videos maintained their status as real, while others were proven to be fake: the objects that were initially assumed to be dead bodies were later labelled blankets. The widespread attention as a result of the Wuhan lockdown shows that Weibo users were concerned about facts and not always confident in official news—most likely because local authorities in Wuhan failed to take action when the virus causing COVID-19 was detected early on (Le Page, 2022). With users’ increasing concerns for Wuhan and lack of trust in official news, a surge of information started to spread on Weibo, including an article dedicated to remembering the “whistle-blowers,” which was later translated into many languages (see Sheng Guang Zu, 2020).

In response to social demands for credible information on Weibo, Wuhan resident and author Wang Fang, under her pen name Fang Fang, started to share a diary on the social networking site. Fang Fang was already known within local spheres for her contributions to literature and her former role as chair of the Hubei Provincial Writer’s Association. Initially, her diary was praised by Weibo users. One of the most liked comments on Fang Fang’s Weibo account was posted on 9 March 2020:

所有人，医务工作者、失去亲人的家庭、所有曾目睹不幸的武汉人，将你们的所见所闻记录下来。前事不忘，后事之师。只有深入思考和总结这一次史无前例的灾难，真正有深刻的变化，我们的孩子、后人，才有可能有一个安全的未来！

[Everyone, including medical workers, families who have lost their loved ones, all Wuhan people who have witnessed the misfortunes, should record what they have seen and heard. Past experience, if not forgotten, is a guide for the future. Only by reflecting on and summarizing the catastrophe can there be actual change—a change that means our children will have a safe future!][10]

At that time, over a month after the start of the Wuhan lockdown, many Weibo users saw Fang Fang’s diary as an appropriate medium through which to record events in a crisis. Additionally, Fang Fang was viewed as setting an example for future generations. Diary readers posted about how they were encouraged and inspired, especially during a time when many related online articles were censored. While Fang Fang’s updates, along with other informative materials, abounded on the internet, they still risked being censored at any moment. Nonetheless, Fang Fang’s writings made it possible for Chinese speakers outside of Wuhan to understand what was being presented as the truth surrounding events within the locked down city.

Despite the initial admiration of Fang Fang and praise for her diary, Weibo users’ attitudes quickly changed when they found out that the diary was to be translated and published: first in English, pre-sold in April 2020, and then in several other languages including German (Fang Fang, 2020c), published immediately after the English translation, and Japanese (Fang Fang, 2020d), published in September the same year. However, the focus was mainly on the English translation, as it was the first translation and in response to China-US tensions on the international political battlefield. Reactions on Weibo were outraged: users flocked to Fang Fang’s page to accuse her of selling out the country and selling weapons to Imperialist America. The latter comment refers to the blame game between China and the US, in which, as mentioned above, many Weibo users sided with China’s Foreign Ministry. On 30 March 2020, the most-liked comment on Fang Fang’s Weibo account was posted, which has since accumulated over 16,000 likes:

您说的真对，只有你才配爬上政治高层，配当主席。这样才能配合美爹打击我党，里应外合当然比外部攻击有用，现在国外一直甩锅说武汉，想把病毒蔓延责任甩给我们。你还无比配合递枪……

[You are so right! Only you deserve to be as great a political figure as a president. Only in this way can you help your America Daddies attack our Communist Party. It is, of course, more useful for the West to collaborate with the force outside from within. Foreign countries want to accuse Wuhan of spreading the virus, and you are so cooperative. You hand the gun to them…][11]

From this point on, the initial praise for Fang Fang was replaced by trolling and abuse. The online anger surrounding Fang Fang’s choice to authorize translations of her diary can be understood as the latter being perceived as a betrayal. In the above comment, the Weibo user makes it clear that Fang Fang was believed to have become a “cooperative” “collaborator” with “the West.” Consequently, she came to be seen as an “enemy from America,” in sharp contrast to how she was previously presented as a “good example” and an “inspiration,” drawing admiration and praise for her diary. Her previous reputation was radically reversed when plans to translate her diary were perceived as a weapon (“gun”) against the Communist Party, as the above comment and its accumulated likes suggest.

Similar trolling is seen on other Chinese social media platforms. For example, on WeChat, another widely-used social media platform with 1.2 billion users as of September 2021 (Reuters Staff, 2022), a video with more than 1 million views and over 10 thousands shares criticized Fang Fang’s decision as “给境外反华势力送弹药 [sending gun powder to anti-China powers outside China],” noting that the diary was translated “速度远超诺贝尔文学奖作家 [far more quickly than the works of Nobel literature prize winners].”[12] Unfortunately, the information-sharing mechanism for WeChat is more private than Weibo’s, and therefore it provides less room for WeChat users to debate openly and publicly. As a result, the attitude of users can only be deduced from the number of clicks and shares provided above.

The English-language translator of the diary, American professor Michael Berry, was also targeted by Weibo users. Before Berry’s translation was announced (see Fang Fang, 2020a), there was little interaction on his Weibo account as indicated by fewer comments under his posts. In some instances, there were just three or four comments, mostly of red hearts or the red rose emoji.[13] However, once the translation was announced, hundreds of trolls starting flooding his account with comments.

On 8 April 2020, the pre-sale date of the English translation on Amazon, a Weibo user took to Berry’s page to post: “有些人降下红旗是为了悼念死者，有些人悼念死者是为了降下红旗！[Some keep the red flag at half-mast to mourn the deaths. Some mourn the deaths to lower the red flag!],”[14] referring to a presupposed opinion that Berry’s translation aimed at harming China’s reputation (i.e. the red flag). The comment has since accumulated 670 likes and can be interpreted as Weibo users expressing their anger at Fang Fang’s decision to allow her diary to be translated for a US audience and Berry’s decision to translate it, particularly at a time of heightened ideological and political conflict arising from the blame game between the US and China regarding the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Additionally, reactions posted on Berry’s Weibo page reveal a shared perception about his decision to translate the diary: an English-language translation would damage China’s international reputation. In July 2020, Berry sought to address some of the comments and defuse the anger and abuse levelled against both himself and Fang Fang by giving an interview in Chinese. In the interview, he said the goal of his translation was to “帮助武汉老百姓，要帮助方方老师，更重要的是要帮助全世界的人来了解这个病毒到底是怎么回事 [help the Wuhan people and Fang Fang, but also to allow people around the world to understand the virus].” He hoped his translation could help the US government, which “新冠病毒处理得非常糟糕 [is dealing catastrophically with the COVID-19 virus],” learn something from China’s successful experience, adding that “美国、巴西、欧洲尤其危险 […] 这些国家的读者都可以从《武汉日记》学到很多 [the US, Brazil, and Europe are especially dangerous […] People from these countries can learn a lot from Wuhan Diary]” (cited in Aimi, 2020, n.p.). Berry also mentioned that “包括《纽约时报》，《纽约客》杂志等美国最大的媒体平台都做了非常有深度的书评，没有一个试图把这本书当成‘伤害中国的武器’[despite in-depth book reviews from some of the largest media platforms like The New York Times and The New Yorker, none of them attempts to use the book as ‘a weapon against China’]” (ibid.). The interview, however, was quickly deleted from Weibo.

The following sections examine Berry’s and Fang Fang’s subverted reputations and potential reasons behind the change in their perceived images on Weibo caused by Fang Fang’s decision to allow her diary to be translated and Berry’s decision to translate it.

The Translator Who Serves One Master—and Betrays Another

Before the publication of Wuhan Diary, Berry already enjoyed a presence on Chinese social media, where his reputation was primarily associated with previous translations of Chinese literature (see for example Yu, 2007) and research works on topics pertaining to China (see Berry, 2019).

Moreover, as a professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at the University of California (Los Angeles) and a Chinese-language speaker, Berry was seen as a de facto member of Chinese society and culture, insofar as non-native Chinese speakers are often regarded as non-official ambassadors of China in the current context of the Chinese government’s goals to spread Chinese culture globally. However, as discussed, his choice to translate Fang Fang’s diary led to his image as a Chinese expert and non-native ambassador to the West being replaced by quite an opposite one.

A Weibo comment on Berry’s page emphasizes the change in perception of his image among platform users: “武汉今天才刚解封，方方奶奶的日记已经有英文版、德文版了，CIA 的动作真是神速啊… [Wuhan lifted its lockdown today, and Granny Fang Fang’s Diary has been translated and published in English and German. The CIA responds very quickly…].”[15] In this instance, it seems that the Weibo user does not regard Berry as a member of Chinese society. Instead, the CIA accusation reveals a newly constructed image of Berry as someone believed to serve China’s rival—the US—in the context of the blame game. In other words, by translating “Granny Fang Fang,” Berry came to be viewed as an American spy, an enemy of China. The CIA comment has since accumulated 470 likes, interpreted here as agreement with the post. Hence, Berry’s image went from being an American friend to a spy who was not only earning insider trust with his disguise as a member of Chinese society and culture but also betraying this trust with his decision to translate Fang Fang’s diary.

Before examining in more detail the issue of trust, it should be noted that these accusations against Berry highlight a common perception of translators, namely, that they serve two masters. The translator as servant of two masters has long been a topic of debate in translation research. Traduttori traditori [translators, traitors] is perhaps one of the most well-known stereotypes about translation and its practitioners. Some scholars (see Greifenhagen, 1992; Hancock, 2016) take the translator/traitor metaphor as a criticism of how translators fail to achieve fidelity, though this is now regarded as an unachievable or illusionary standard of translation (see Grossman, 2010). There is, however, another reading of traduttori traditori. Translators may be perceived as traitors to their source or target communities. For example, Mona Baker argues that the translator can simultaneously be regarded “as victim or villain, as friend or foe” (2010, p. 204), depending on who narrates the story. Baker concludes that in a violent conflict, “translators and interpreters play a significant role in shaping the narratives, and hence the events, that define any war. Various parties need and fear them, trust or mistrust them, respect or despise them” (ibid., p. 217). In other words, while translators are often seen as mediators between differences (see Murray, 2005; Pöchhacker, 2008), they also run the risk of representing the interests of one master while conflicting with those of the other.

Similarly, Thomas Beebee, drawing on Jacques Derrida, calls the translator “homo sacer,” arguing that the translator acts as a “pharmakon […] both poison and remedy” (2010, p. 105; italics in original). Consequently, translators are sometimes perceived as being deceptive under the cover of loyalty or loyal under the cover of deception. Pharmakon “seems bad whereas it is beneficial” in the Philebus and the Protagoras, but “it is passed off as a helpful remedy whereas it is in truth harmful” in the Phaedrus and the Timaeus (Derrida, 1983, p. 103). An implication thus emerges: the translator’s decision on what, when, and whom to translate is not neutral, especially in cases of conflict. In instances of ideological conflict, translation can be considered as either leading to “hard” or “soft” conflict, following the distinction made by Jun Tang (2007, p. 137), two concepts that refer to either disagreements that are publicly addressed (hard translation-conflict) or disagreements that are absent from public discourse (soft translation-conflict). So, when is a translator the remedy or poison; or rather, when and for whom is the translator—as pharmakon—beneficial? Examining translators’ decisions or choices of what and whom to translate may begin to address such questions.

Translators make decisions based on their personal values, beliefs, and ideologies. For example, in a case described by Baker (2010), Iraqi translators’ decisions to translate for US Americans turn the Iraqi translators into perceived “traitors” for the locals and “allies” to the US. However, the distinction between remedy and poison is not clear-cut. Being perceived as an ally does not mean having full trust: the pharmakon, in this instance, may not be entirely, if at all, beneficial. As pointed out by Baker, translators are often distrusted by their employers during a conflict and sometimes regarded as spies. The translator’s role in serving two masters thus has ethical implications, which might be best understood as deciding which master to serve.

Similarly, many other types of professionals cautiously avoid situations in which there is a need to simultaneously serve two masters. This has long been the case with respect to ethical conduct in courts. For instance, judges should avoid cases where they know the defendant (see Slapper, 2015). Yet, even if judges avoid such situations, there are still ethical issues related to this two-master dilemma, for example, the attorney-mediator case, as discussed by Mori Irvine (1994). Not all translators work in courts, but translators are mediators in almost all communication scenarios (see Bedeker and Feinauer, 2006; Bassnett, 2011; Pym, 2012). Many of Irvine’s observations on attorneys, about whom she says, “there is an ethical fault line menacing attorneys in mediation situations” (1994, p. 184), can be said of translators. As much as translators mediate, they also separate and betray.

John Edwards observes that translation was seen as betrayal once “we feared that those ‘hoard dreams’ and those ‘patents of life’ had been taken across group lines,” so that “translation may mean the revealing of deep matters to others […] The translator [...] is a necessary quisling” (2006, p. 96). In a lighter tone, Edwards says that translation seen as treason is “less frequent than those that point the finger at the inadequacies of translation” and “not even their employers care very much for traitors” (ibid.). The problem of betrayal and the stereotype of traduttori traditori, therefore, remains unsolved, and is likely never to be solved, which results in the problem of trust: the translator’s trust of the source and target texts, and the source and target communities’ trust of the translator.

To further examine the issue of trust, let us turn to translators’ trust of their masters. Once translators choose to serve, they place trust in their masters. For George Steiner (1975, p. 296), trust is the first stage of translation. Translators believe that their translations will not be in vain and that there is something worthwhile to translate in the first place. Additionally, translators trust there is an equivalent meaning between languages or, more precisely, between two semiotic systems. Such trust makes translators vulnerable to truth and scrutiny.

Some of Fang Fang’s readers took to Weibo to voice concerns over false information in her diary, and this endangers the reputation of both the author (see below) and the translator. For example, a nurse named Liang is said to be dead (Fang Fang, 2020a, March 23). Fang Fang used the sentence structure “听说… [I heard that…],” which caused the information to be doubted by many. By choosing to translate her diary—flaws and all—Berry “lets the goodness [of the author’s] will stand between” him and “the false belief” (Dannenberg, 2020, p. 132; my italics). Consequently, when the death of nurse Liang was proven false, Berry was accused of spreading false information to China’s rival in the blame game. The Weibo account 上帝之鹰_5zn [Shangdi Zhi Ying_5zn][16] pointed out that nurse Liang was still alive, confronting Fang Fang: “你敢出来回应么？[Dare you respond to this?],” eliciting more than 110 thousand likes. Under the post, the most liked comment says: “我听朋友说方方死在医院了 [I heard from my friends that Fang Fang died in the hospital].”[17] This shows the anger of Weibo users reacting to this misleading information. Despite Fang Fang’s explanation of and apology for instances of factual errors, Weibo users still considered them to be voluntary falsifications and criticized both Fang Fang and Berry for producing misleading texts, especially Berry, since the misleading English text compromises China’s self-projected image.[18]

Moreover, while translators may trust their own translations, their trust in their native language can pose problems, particularly when there are increasing numbers of bilingual and multilingual readers. When translators make choices, they expose themselves to scrutiny from both the source and target readers. Whereas translation scholars generally agree that a perfect equivalence—whatever connotation we give to the notion of equivalence—is rarely possible, the source and target readers expect translators to be as precise as possible, and any perceived lack of equivalence has the potential to be publicly denounced.

In the case of Fang Fang’s diary, the English version was first published under the title Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from the Original Epicenter (Fang Fang, 2020a). Berry received criticism for this title from bi/multilingual readers in China, particularly those who supported the Foreign Ministry in the blame game. In framing Fang Fang’s Weibo posts as Wuhan Diary, Berry’s translation carried the subtext of a collective narrative involving an entire place and its peoples, whereas the diary is best understood as a personal narrative, embedded within wider social narratives (see Baker, 2006; Harding, 2012). Furthermore, the subtitle makes Wuhan “the original epicenter” in the English version, which was seen as a dubious move in the political context (see Xiao, 2020). As a result, a few months after the first edition of the translation was published, a second edition came out with the title Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City (Fang Fang, 2020b).

The translator who serves two masters—or readerships—is often judged as either trusted or doubted by each master, and at different moments. In Maurice-Edgar Coindreau’s view, a trusted translator is a “monkey-dog,” highlighting loyalty (“dog”) and similarity (“monkey”) (see Rizzi et al., 2019, p. 43). By contrast, the doubted translator is the one that emerges in Berry’s case. As already discussed, his source text readers (especially Weibo users) accused him of being a spy for the CIA. Rizzi et al. (2019, p. 40) note that trust applies not only to the person who is entrusted to create the translated text, but also to the perceived trustworthiness of intercultural mediators and their networks. In other words, the agents—in this case bilingual Weibo users—involved in a translational process may trust translators to create one type of text but not another.

In sum, Berry published two differently titled and, therefore, framed translations. Based on the reactions of Weibo supporters of the Foreign Ministry’s stance on the origin of the COVID-19 virus, it is clear that Berry’s decision to translate the diary and his first controversial English title (which they understood) were examined and publicly scrutinized. Once his translation was published, Berry was seen in a negative light by Weibo users to be a spy who stole local information with the purpose of serving the political interests of the US and damaging China’s reputation in the context of the blame game. In Berry’s case, issues of ethics and trust, alongside his own translational choices, therefore led to the subversion of his initial image as a non-official ambassador from China to the West. The Weibo community flipped a switch that revealed one of the translator’s perceived two masters and concealed the other.

The Author Who Reveals Family Secrets—or Offers Such a  Possibility

That an author’s image on Weibo, like a translator’s, can radically change lies in its duality. However, though linked by context and timing, the mechanism that triggers the switch is different from the one that subverts the translator’s reputation. Weibo users’ comments give us an insight into the mechanism through which Fang Fang’s image changed. As previously discussed, Fang Fang was initially praised for her diary, but after the news that the translation would be published was known to Weibo users, she was seen as an “American.” On Fang Fang’s Weibo account, the following comment was posted on 28 March 2020:

诚然偌大的国家有诸多的问题，可偏偏在全面人民奋誓死抗击疫情之际，一味的阴冷嘲讽，一味的批判，一味的“听说”“听说”于国家何益！于民族何益！反倒是给欧美政客“增了光、添了彩”

[Indeed, this large country has many problems. However, while all Chinese citizens are sacrificing themselves by fighting against the virus, you merely do nothing but write sarcastically and critically. Those “I heard that” and “I heard that” in your diary do no good to our country! They do no good to our nation! [The diary] only helps to “glorify” those European and American politicians!][19]

The above comment accumulated over 900 likes before it was deleted. The likes can be interpreted as signalling that Weibo users admit or agree that “China has many problems.” They also appeared to agree that publicizing China’s problems, specifically with respect to the Wuhan lockdown, through translations of the diary, was not good for the nation and only helped glorify European and American politicians. It seems, then, that Weibo users who liked this post have a strong sense of community and agree that China’s problems, especially its secrets, should not be revealed to outsiders. This last remark requires an explanation.

Belonging to a community often comes with an obligation to keep secrets. In his discussion of the “uncanny,” Sigmund Freud (2004 [1919]) uses the German word for secret, geheim, which shares the same root with heimlich, meaning “belonging to the house” or “homely,” but also “concealed, kept from sight” (ibid., p. 78). In other words, our sense of belonging to a family home, or wider community, is closely related to concealing things from outsiders: one who keeps a secret is a true family member.

A similar value is rooted in Chinese culture. An old Chinese saying goes: “家丑不可外扬 [lit. Family ugliness should not be told to outsiders].” As Jianmin Wang (2013) reminds us, this old saying highlights several cultural beliefs. Firstly, the saying emphasizes the importance of the reputation of a family unit over that of individual members. Secondly, many Chinese people believe that the revealing of secrets results in mockery by outsiders, and to be mocked means “没面子 [losing face]” (ibid., p. 101). Thirdly, “should not be told to outsiders” means a family should deal with its ugly problems internally, without help from outsiders. Finally, the family rule of not discussing family business—especially ugliness—outside of the family reveals the extent of parental authority within a given Chinese family. Chinese parents tend to decide how to deal with problems, without letting outsiders have a say (ibid., pp. 100-102). Put differently, the scandals and wrongdoings within a Chinese family are secrets to be kept within the family. In contemporary China, there exists a widespread belief that revealing a secret may have unwanted consequences, such as parents feeling that their authority is threatened, and that they are no longer in control of family affairs or solving problems.

The will to prevent internal affairs from being manipulated by outsiders is thus deeply rooted in Chinese culture. In Chinese, a country is a 国家 [lit. family-state], and there are similarities between Chinese families and the Chinese nation-state.[20] For example, the Chinese government rules the country in the same way parents run a family, and citizens regard the government as their parent (Pan et al., 2001). In the above Weibo comment on Fang Fang’s account, and many others like it, “我们国家 [our family-state]” is mentioned. These sorts of statements can be understood as Chinese Weibo users regarding China as a whole community, which may be even more closely knit than the “imagined communities” described by Benedict Anderson (2006 [1983]). Since China’s government is seen as the parent, and the citizens as the children, Chinese people give the government permission to keep internal affairs and secrets “safe” from outsiders. When secrets are revealed outside the family to another country (i.e., another family-state), China risks losing face and reputation, and the government, its permission to control. This hiding of secrets is especially pertinent to China’s efforts to build its international reputation and develop its soft power.

The resistance to revealing “family ugliness” is based on a top-down approach, within a wider narrative of non-interference in internal affairs. In 1954, the newly founded People’s Republic of China stated its Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, one of which was “mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs” (United Nations, 1958, n.p.). By emphasizing mutual respect between China and other nations, the Chinese government hoped to keep the international community out of China’s domestic issues.[21] Nonetheless, this narrative of mutual non-interference is flawed. The categorization of international affairs as either “domestic” or “foreign” creates a grey zone—intentionally or unintentionally—in how the international community reacts to the principle and how the Chinese government claims to be abiding by it.

The non-interference principle has been passed down over generations since it was first proposed. It has become a widespread cultural value that is promoted through exposure to propaganda, ranging from mandatory school education to daily news broadcasts. For many Chinese people educated under this system, non-interference is thus very often assimilated and goes unchallenged. As a result, the concept of home affairs as secrets is re-enforced through government propaganda on the principle of mutual non-interference, associating it with cultural values (see Li et al., 2004).

In this regard, language is one of the most important ways to contain information on domestic affairs. When secrets are expressed in the Chinese language, outsiders—in the sense of non-Chinese speakers, and by extension, non-members of Chinese society and culture—are prevented from meddling in internal issues, or so the Chinese community hopes. But, the principle of non-interference can be undermined in translation, which allows an outsider—in Berry’s case, a potential political enemy—to gain access to and share information on China’s internal affairs. Here, translation—which entailed revealing secrets surrounding China’s treatment of its people during the early months of the pandemic—went against the dominant principle of non-interference. In other words, such translation causes a hard translation-conflict, not among the target text cultural groups, but among the bi/multilingual source text reader groups.

In other words, the negative impact of Berry’s translation of Fang Fang’s diary on China’s international image tapped into an anxiety shared by the Chinese community, including Weibo users. The reference to “glorifying those European and American politicians” was not a response to Western politicians. Instead, the comment and accumulated likes arose from collective fears surrounding what such politicians could gain or learn from an English translation. In turn, this had consequences at the micro level, specifically for the author and translator: Berry and Fang Fang were seen to have played a role in revealing China’s secrets. The idea that Western politicians could transform these secrets into real action against China—though this had not yet begun, as Berry claimed—was extremely unsettling for many.

The widespread anger that ensued, however, was mainly directed at the author, resulting in the perception of her image on Weibo being subverted. After Fang Fang announced the forthcoming translation of her diary, a Weibo user posted the following question under one of her posts: “同问，方方什么时候回美国? [Question: when will Fang Fang go back to America?].”[22] There is a subtext in the question—that of “going back home”—which, considering its accumulated likes, suggests that Fang Fang was no longer viewed by Weibo users as a member of Chinese society. The post’s accumulated likes thus emphasize the users’ perception of Fang Fang as an outsider, an author-traitor.

On one level, Fang Fang’s consent to be translated, most notably by Berry, is what caused the subversion of her reputation. This decision also signalled Fang Fang’s trust in the American translator. On another level, however, the context played a crucial role in how and why her image was subverted, because Fang Fang’s consent and trust in Berry took place against the backdrop of the ideological conflict between China and the US. Hence, Weibo users stripped Fang Fang of her nationality and declared her an outsider in disguise, seeking to reveal the “family ugliness” to the enemy. In Weibo’s discourse, she becomes the enemy who is told to “go back” to her own family.

Like Berry’s, Fang Fang’s image was subverted on Weibo through trolling. However, Fang Fang’s decision-making process was different from Berry’s. Her consent to be translated by an American for English readers—particularly Americans—during the blame game turned Fang Fang, once an admired role model for the Chinese community, into an American and an enemy. The diary directly pointed to the ugliness of China’s treatment of its citizens in dealing with the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the city where it was first detected.[23] As a result of her consent to reveal family secrets—through Berry’s translation—to US outsiders, Weibo users, as members of Chinese society, no longer considered Fang Fang to be a family member. This change in perception led to an even closer scrutiny of her work: stories in the diary once seen as courageous and inspirational came to be regarded as lies and even a weapon against the state.

Conclusion: The Fluidity of Online Images

This article has examined how the socially perceived images of the Chinese author Fang Fang and the American translator Michael Berry changed due to the consequences of their decisions to be translated and to translate, respectively. The joint decision by Berry and Fang Fang to make Wuhan Diary available to an English-speaking audience, during the height of the ideological blame game between the US and China, has had negative consequences for both author and translator. Their choices and decisions surrounding the translation have resulted in long-term reputational damage and ongoing trolling.

Fang Fang and Berry are subject to ongoing attacks in response to their translational decisions. When political or public health-related scandals arise in the US, Weibo users post on Fang Fang’s page asking her to write an “美国日记 [American Diary].” We might understand these demands in terms of Weibo users seeking revenge by revealing the ugliness of US domestic affairs. Fang Fang’s choice not to get involved or address these comments seems to add an element of truth to the claims of the online trolls that she is one of them: an enemy from America. She is perceived to be a person who is willing to conceal the secrets of the US but happy to reveal (and sell) China’s.

However, a person’s image is not and can never be fixed. As Kamila Kunrath et al. (2020) remind us, social perceptions have the potential to undermine normative identity constructs, and this is the case with Fang Fang: she has been stripped of her status as a member of Chinese society and culture due to her consent to be translated. The image examined in this article was based on an investigation carried out on Weibo between 2020 and 2021. The reception and political readings of Berry and Fang Fang will, therefore, continue to evolve. Furthermore, there is a fine line between self and other that contributes to the fluidity of constructed images. Richard Kearney proposes a “diacritical hermeneutics” (2003) for understanding self and otherness that requires understanding the balance between difference and sameness. As our case study has shown, the subversion derives from a socially perceived violation of an ethical standard or an imbalance between self and other. Both the translator and the author once held the status of sameness, of being considered members of Chinese society and culture. It is precisely their perceived violation of this membership by the Weibo community that stripped them of their belonging to this same, familiar community and prompted Weibo users to eventually construct both Fang Fang and Michael Berry as other, to the point of regarding them as enemies in the US-China blame game.

Translators and authors can be perceived as both self and other. However, in this instance, Berry’s and Fang Fang’s otherness prevailed in terms of their reception by the diary’s source text community. Weibo users, and more broadly, China as a family-state, feared the revelation of ugly secrets to the West, which was the main cause for the subversion of Berry’s and Fang Fang’s reputations. His choice to translate and her consent to be translated were seen as potentially giving the US the upper hand. Through the translation, the US gained insider knowledge of the scandals surrounding the Wuhan lockdown, as narrated by Fang Fang and re-narrated by Berry. While such revelations of internal affairs were perceived as betrayal, the original content also came under scrutiny, with some of the diary’s entries deemed false gossip. As for the translation, the English title of the first published version was a politically charged paratextual hand grenade that resulted in both author and translator being perceived as opposing the Weibo community and perhaps, more broadly, China.

When the American translator became a spy, the Chinese author became an enemy from America. The decision-making process with regard to who and what is translated, and when, clearly has the potential to subvert reputations on a micro-level, to the extent of completely changing the terms of an author’s and a translator’s social—or, at least online—acceptance.