Disinfectant activities

I am writing this from my village in the mountainous Tibetan regions of western Sichuan Province, in China. We have been on lockdown for almost a month, and the fresh vegetables we bought for our New Year celebrations have almost run out (though we have plenty of potatoes and other food in storage).

Recently, the weather has seemed to fluctuate as much as people’s mood, with alternating days of snow and sun. My family has been constantly asking me to find information about how many people have been infected and died, even waking me up early in the morning to ask. People are starting to feel hopeful, as the number of infections seems to be going down, but we are also worried, because we are not far from rTa’u, which is the epicenter of the epidemic in Tibetan areas.

In my community, and in many communities in this area, the stress of the epidemic and quarantine has been compounded by the difficulty of getting information in our languages. For me, my family, and my community, that language is Khroskyabs.

In this post I am going to summarize and discuss the health information that has been made available in four rGyalrongic languages spoken by Tibetans in my region: rTau, Minyak, Shili rGyalrong, and Khroskyabs. Below, I introduce four recent social media posts in these languages; since none of these languages are currently written, these posts are video and audio. To help understand the impact these translated materials are having, I also spoke to people about them, via social media, using a standard set of questions that I distributed in written Chinese. I also spoke with my family, relatives, and villagers about this translated health information. So, to begin with, I will provide brief summaries of the four social media posts in local languages, to provide more context for the analysis that follows.

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Multilingual educational video spoken in Minyak

The first is a video is in rTa’u (道孚语). It is presented by Thudan Nyima, a man in his 40s. The video begins with him giving greetings in Mandarin and Amdo Tibetan, the two dominant languages in the region. He then goes on to explain the three main methods for preventing the spread of the virus: wear face masks, wash hands, and avoid crowds. He then discusses two situations where one might contract the virus: when touching shoes or elevator buttons.

A second video, in Minyak (木雅语言), was translated by Yeshi Wangdo, a 23 year-old medical student. In the video, he briefly presents the disease’s symptoms: fever, coughing, difficulty breathing, and fatigue. He then introduces ways to avoid contracting the disease, presented as “three don’ts”—avoid elevators, avoid gatherings, and avoid meetings—and three “dos”—wash hands, let air circulate, and disinfect often. Finally, he presents three things to avoid in order to prevent the disease from spreading: don’t believe rumors, don’t start rumors, and don’t spread rumors.

A third post is an audio recording in the rGyalrong variety of Shili Township (十里乡). It is presented by Danpel, a 27-year-old monk. In his presentation, Danpel describes the virus as a new type of lung disease, and talks about its possible origins. He provides statistics on how many people have been infected and have died so far, and also discusses a case of the virus in the vicinity of his hometown. Finally, he presents the symptoms of the disease, introduces the fourteen-day latency period, and discusses the benefits of addressing the problem with both science and mantras.

A final example is an audio recording in my language, Khroskyabs (绰斯甲语). It was voiced by Tserdan, a 42-year-old khenpo—a highly-educated Buddhist monk. He talks about the sources, symptoms, transmission, and prevention of the virus, and describes how he learnt this information from other khenpo in Seda Monastery, an important religious institution in the region. He talks about how to dispose of masks correctly, discusses how drinking and smoking together can help spread the infection, and suggests that people should avoid visiting friends and relatives. Finally, he talks about the importance of chanting mantras to ward off the disease.

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Roadblock in my area

Much of the information presented in these videos and audio recordings has been translated from other languages. Most public health information is accessed on TV, in Mandarin or Amdo Tibetan, or on social media, again mostly in Mandarin or Amdo Tibetan, and also, but much less frequently, in local languages. In many places, community groups on the WeChat social media platform have been organized by village leaders, and here, information is circulated in local languages. And of course, people also translate and share information directly with one another and on social media in local languages.

Since the identification of the virus, there has been a lot of health information circulated in both written Chinese and literary Tibetan. And although many people can access this information, barriers to understanding still exist within communities that speak minoritized languages. This is the main reason that people from these communities have decided to translate information into local languages.

Such translations are particularly important for elders, who are often monolingual. In many communities, the majority of the permanent residents are elders, fifty years and above, whilst younger people spend much of their time in towns and cities for work and study. Such elders are often illiterate and have limited capacity in spoken Mandarin and Amdo Tibetan. For these elders, who are also particularly susceptible to the disease, these translations are very valuable.

In addition to aiding this particularly vulnerable population, the translations have a number of other benefits. People I communicated with generally had positive appraisals of the videos in their languages, saying that they were easy to understand, created a sense of familiarity, and were useful. They also said that hearing this information in their local languages reinforced the seriousness of the event, even if they already knew the content being shared.

The creation and circulation of videos in different languages has also raised people’s awareness of linguistic diversity in the region. So far, I have seen videos in around ten minoritized languages just in western Sichuan. Such a proliferation of translation into local languages is unprecedented, and has given people a new appreciation of local linguistic diversity. For example, my uncle listened to the Khroskyabs audio over and over again because it was in a different variety of Khroskyabs from the one we speak. He could understand 80-90% of the content, and was fascinated by the linguistic differences; he giggled at the pronunciation differences between the two dialects. But this recognition of diversity is more than just entertaining. One elder explained the importance of hearing his language in a video by saying, “We are up to date,” meaning that we are no longer a backward or excluded community. Translation brings recognition and respect for our languages.

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Another roadblock to discourage travel

Not all feedback about these posts was positive, however. One elderly man said the language used in the videos sounded weird and unnatural to him, and that he felt it was inappropriate to receive such important information in the local language.

Other people I spoke with had different feedback about the translations. People wished that the information had been made available in their languages sooner—the first of these four videos appeared around three weeks after we entered quarantine. People were frustrated that while the same information was being circulated repeatedly in other languages, it took a long time for anything to appear in their languages. They were also concerned about the length of the videos—they felt they were too short, and did not contain enough information. One person said to me, “I feel more nervous after watching the video because it did not mention any of the latest updates, like how the treatment is going and if we have a cure or not.” Finally, people were also concerned about the quality of the videos—their low quality made them seem less reliable. On this topic, one person wrote to me, “Even though the videos contain good information, we need to improve the production quality including multilingual subtitles. Other ethnicities are doing a better job.”

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Reaching people in languages they understand and trust, including minoritized languages, plays a significant role in supporting better outcomes for an epidemic crisis like this (Briggs 2019). If people have information that they understand and trust, I believe that they are more likely to make appropriate decisions, like wearing masks and washing hands, and thus be more able to contribute to containing the epidemic.

Reference

Briggs, Charles L. 2019. “Language, Justice, and Rabies: Notes from a Fatal Crossroads.” In Netta Avineri, Laura R Graham, Eric J Johnson, Robin Conley Riner, and Jonathan Rosa (eds). Language and Social Justice in Practice. New York: Routledge, 109-118.