Gentlemen:
I have been receiving a gift subscription to your magazine for well over one year. During this time I have enjoyed many of the articles that have appeared in your publication, and usually attempt to read each issue from cover to cover. One key flaw in your magazine which has prevented me from being able to read many major sections is that you neglect to translate many of your articles into English! I really don't understand why the entire magazine is not translated to English--especially since the version I receive is supposed to be for an English-speaking audience. As you may have guessed, I can only read English, and thus I categorize myself as part of the English-speaking audience.
I hypothesized as to why you don't provide a complete translation and conjured up three potential reasons:
(1) You believe that some of the articles are too trivial or too uninteresting for an English-speaking audience,
(2) You believe that some of the articles are too embarrassing to Taiwan if an English-speaking audience were to be able to read them, or
(3) The cost and time that would have to be spent for translating each issue completely is too high to be practical or profitable.
If the first statement is an accurate reflection of your reasoning, then let me assure you that articles that you may believe are trivial may in fact provide tremendous social, cultural, or environmental insights of Taiwan to the reader. If the second statement is correct, then I would be very disappointed in the management and staff of SINORAMA, and there would be nothing more that I would want to say. If the third statement is correct, then I accept that as a good reason for not performing complete translations.
Please consider one simple reason for providing complete translations: an English language version of SINORAMA should be published in English! (I'd even like to see the advertisements in English, but I'll settle for just the articles).
Amos Lu
Dear Mr. Lu:
Thank you very much for your warm letter. We always appreciate hearing from our readers. If you ever have any suggestions or comments on the magazine, please drop a line and let us know.
The reason why all of our articles do not get a translation is because of the third possibility you suggested: we just don't have the time. We translate what we can, but with so many articles coming in which have to be rewritten and edited, we siniply don't have the opportunity to translate them all. The articles which are translated are those which we feel will be of the most interest to the English language reader.
Thank you again for your note. If you feel there is a certain subject that Sinorama should give more attention to or treat differently, by all means don't hesitate to tell us.
Sinorama Editorial Department