Voice Post

Dear fellow blog readers,

I am sorry to inform you guys that I had to leave my admirations for my PhD student in political science for a more radical group of bandits. Won’t you agree that this is a bit more romantic? I mean seriously, this makes a more epic story of an undergraduate student (that’s me) jumping on the bandwagon of ‘China lovers’ (Go figure~). Even more surprising is that my group of bandits (Yes, I’ve claimed them similar to how Christopher Columbus claimed the ‘New World’) really do go out of their way to not only add their own commentaries about Chinese affairs; but also introduce two perspectives from different articles. Dare I say it, it is faith! The perfect group of people to start stalking from afar (ahhh ^.^~).

From the many editors and authors this group of bandits have the one I am going to stalk more frequently is going to be DeWang (Why you may ask? … “The world may never know”). Even I must admit to psychoanalyze his writing habits are a bit creepy, but because that is what psychotic people or stalkers do it just feels like one of those things you don’t question and just do I suppose.

I feel like generally speaking his writing style uses to some extent side comments, metaphor, imagery, rhetorical questions, and witty comments. Furthermore, he makes a good usage of hyperlinks, quotations and parenthesis to emphasize what he’s attempting to convey.

CASE #1: “The Economist, it is time for a new editorial overhaul”

Like many of us DeWang utilizes hyperlinks (for example: “The Economist recently announced a dedicated weekly section on China”) as a dynamic tool to make what he’s talking about relevant and accessible to his readers (which is much appreciated). It’s interesting that DeWang hyperlinks the word “announced” rather than “The Economist,” but his decision is justifiable because the word “announced” is the relevant topic about that sentence. Moreover, he neglects to italicize The Economist even though it is a newspaper (was he just lazy to italicize, you be the guess).

He also incorporates in this post direct quotation from a speaker and isolates it from his own paragraph (almost like featuring it on its own). This visual representation helps (I assume) to identify to break in the narration from DeWang to the person who is being quoted.

This sentence within this post also caught my attention:

“In my view, the extra attention they give to ‘China’ as a topic is hardly going to help Westerners’ understanding of China.”

How he singles out the word “China” to my understanding is more like looking for the meaning what “China” is. Rather than the obvious answer: A country. Even in the context of this sentence his voice emerges pretty noticeable in his discontent of how The Economist perpetuates Westerners’ misunderstanding of China.

Lastly, another section within his blog post where he shows side remarks is in:

“The Economist’s coverage of China is bigoted, as exemplified by their debut article – which I am rebutting in this post (my rebuttal on the right).”

I like how he reinforces his discontent in the parenthesis and in the en dash his transition from semi-academic language to a more disagreeing language reinforced by his own personal authority figure.

CASE #2:  “South China Sea, two opposing views from Philipines on the U.S. Asia ‘pivot’”

In this post you see his cynical and witty voice come through:

“Geopolitics is a funny game, and us mere mortals simply have no idea what the true reality is.”

I like the humor in the fact that he mentions “geopolitics” can be seen as a game for amusement and that ordinary people have no idea what it is. He further adds his distinct humorous voice in the imagery (“...two giants tugging…”). And lastly in his metaphor in the following sentences:

“Imagine two elephants in a room with a little mouse. Sadly, the reality is it’s much more likely that the little mouse gets stepped on. (Wait, are elephants really afraid of mouse?)”

He defines it in an amusing manner that in the end he jokes and questions the validity of elephants being afraid to mice.

Overall, DeWang is an amusing character and likes to play with the diction of his posts from being academic to uh … less academic to say the least. He’s transformed a generally boring topic to something that may enrage the reader of how nonchalantly he drops his strong opinions. And oddly you feel reassured that he’s somewhat right.