“Well, I never, ever saw the translation from the ultimate authority, the translation unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I disagree a lot with them because I think the principal issue is to find a term as close as possible to the original, which is mission impossible. As to this ‘zheteng’, don’t try to find a word, rather try to understand history. Right after the People’s Republic of China came into being, we had the Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

　　 “That is to say, after the first, you turn to another thing that you believe is as great, and it ends up as a complete failure. There have been several such incidents in our history and that means our country has ‘zheteng-ed’ many times.”

　　 The crowd went into splits with laughter.

　　 “My point is that it’s really impossible to render some terms, some words, or a slang, from one language to another. The best way is to simply adopt the Chinese word into English. English is very receptive to all kinds of words. It has taken in French and German words. Why do we court trouble? So, don’t bother.”

　　 (More laughter.)

　　 “I think it could only partly render the meaning. That is not enough. Well, then, Shakespeare has provided something for us, that is, ‘much ado about nothing’. Partly true. ‘Much ado about nothing’ could be conveying some kind of message. Still, I don’t think it’s good enough. Why? Because ‘zheteng’ is a verb, verb intransitive in Chinese, whereas ‘much ado about nothing’ is a noun. So, you cannot do that.

　　 (Laughter)

　　“So, for me, the first choice is to literally put the word into English. ‘Zheteng’(Chinese).

　　 (Laughter)

　　 “Other translations closest to this term are ‘don’t rock the boat’ or ‘no boat rocking’. Since we are all having a good time and then somebody is starting to rock the boat, ‘buzheteng’ (Chinese) is simply ‘not to rock the boat’.

　　 “Thank you very much.”