Good communication can be difficult enough in English. When you complicate it with a cross-cultural divide, the challenges increase immensely—and sometimes hilariously.
That’s the premise behind David Henry Hwang’s play Chinglish, which debuted on Broadway on October 27. We geeked out because this hit production opens with a PowerPoint presentation. That’s right, goodbye boardroom, hello Broadway!
Production shot from Chinglish’s run at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
The presenter is an American, and he talks about the difficulties of doing business in China. His company is vying for a job creating English signage for a Chinese cultural center.
Hwang got the idea for his new play during a trip to Shanghai in 2005. He told the New York Times, “We went to one brand-new cultural center that had gorgeous Italian marble, fine Brazilian wood, smart German design and these horribly translated signs for handicapped restrooms that read, ‘Deformed Man’s Toilet.”‘ Everywhere he looked, he saw “an eagerness among Chinese and Americans to impress one another, yet wildly basic misunderstandings because of language and cultural differences.”
The topic of cultural differences is especially timely for us, because the opening of Chinglish coincided with Nancy’s visit to Beijing and Taiwan. Over the course of nine days, she presented to Chinese dignitaries, businesspeople, and educators and researched how cultural differences influence storytelling.
To avoid the kind of misunderstandings that Hwang observed in Shanghai, Nancy hired a cross-cultural consultant. The coach spent three hours helping Nancy understand her audience and the cultural gap between how she communicates and how the Chinese process information. Her coach compared culture to an iceberg. Behavior is the tip of the iceberg, and the customs, assumptions, beliefs and values that influence behavior are hidden beneath the surface.
Nancy had an incredible experience, and she brought us back one priceless souvenir that’s very apropos to Chinglish:
This was an actual placard from a panel discussion in Taiwan. Though, as mis-translations go, it’s hard to imagine a better title than “Instructor of World-Class Spellbinders.”