Chinese Flavor for <em>New Wave</em>

Tulane alumna Chao-Ting (Esther) Liu is taking a leap into the world of blogging. But her posts shouldn't be mistaken for any old blog — she includes stories from New Wave that have been translated into Chinese!

Liu, a native and current resident of Taiwan, received her undergraduate degree in psychology and environmental studies back in 2006, but her love for New Orleans kept her holding on to memories of life on Tulane's campus.

“My four-year experience at Tulane — including one semester in California due to Hurricane Katrina — is precious to me,” says Liu. “I miss my friends and professors there very much. Last year I started reading Tulane New Wave, which gave me many new updates on the university and the city.”

The updates, she says, are of great importance to many people in Taiwan.

“Tulane is quite famous in Taiwan for its graduate programs, especially the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Business School. Most of the Taiwanese students are in graduate or PhD programs, and some professors and researchers in public health are from Taiwan as well,” says Liu. “I am proud of that, but when I browse the Internet, it's a pity that there is not much about the university in Chinese besides basic introduction.”

Liu is putting her English-to-Chinese translating skills to work in her blog called NOLA in TW, which offers full Chinese translation of some of New Wave's articles. The links to original articles also are posted.

While Liu forewarns that her translations are not perfect, she hopes to get better with time.

“My words are elementary compared with the work of professional translators, but they are able to capture the meanings of original articles yet easy enough to understand at the same time,” says Liu. “Most importantly, I hope that by doing this, people in Taiwan will get to know more about Tulane as well as the wonderful life in the Big Easy.”

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