Book Talk: A Blogger’s Manifesto 部落客宣言 by Erik Ringmar

For Taiwanese people who wrote blogs, connection with local English bloggers are always problematic. Not only because their English writing content is difficult and distanced (even through it might be the most important reason), but also a different kind (or kinds?) of mentality and living style(s) behind the superficial dancing glyphs. Without too much encouragement & preparation to meet the difference, the encountering process of Taiwanese people connect with foreign bloggers evolves slowly along geospatial or traditional linkages rather than the light speed of new media itself.

This kind of predicament also reflected when Taiwanese people approach blog. We first treat it as a writing / self-discovering apparatus, to recover our long lost tongues, instead of a super reading machine. We heavily relied on Chinese blogs, which are comparatively less in quantity and quality than English blogs in the early days of blogging. And long Chinese blog itself is diminishing, due to the readability and (essential) difficulty of writing an good article, especially in the era of prevailing micro-blogging, for instance, Twitter & Plurk.

bookcover of 部落客宣言 A Blogger's Manifesto (Trad. Chinese version)

How did bloggers engage themselves in larger trends, crossing the boundary of languages, to reach a sense of community, defend the new basic rights, and fight for common destiny? How do we shape the same enemies, and realize the common new cyber-ground we are having our feet on? A recently translated Chinese book, 《部落客宣言》 A Blogger’s Manifesto by Professor 林瑞谷 Erik Ringmar, is just in time to bridge that gap of Taiwanese/Chinese-speaking bloggers and their world.

Since almost a decade of blog introduced in Taiwan, blogging is now a very common phenomena everywhere in educational institutions, business companies, academia and among families. Having troubles with blogging just as easy and popular as having blogs, especially when people want to say something different. Those moments might be whistle blowing, sarcasm or just plainly childish and stupid. At such essential moments, bloggers, might be really crossing the language and other barriers to discover themselves in a global community having something in commons.

We are inviting Professor Erik Ringmar to give a lecture about his Chinese new book in Dharma Drum Degui Academy at 6/20 3:00pm~ 5:00pm, and also invite senior local bloggers, including 工頭堅 Ken Worker (in video), 鄭陸霖教授 Jerry Cheng, 曾昭明 Jerome “Poiesis” Tseng, 黃小黛 Debby Huang, and 鄭國威 Portnoy Cheng (and others), to share their responses. The talk would be in English/Chinese, and we are expecting a wonderful afternoon bloggers meetup across the bridges.

References:

• Registration of Professor Erik Ringmar’s talk in Philanthropy Forum: Book Talk “A Blogger’s Manifesto 部落客宣言
• Chinese introduction at Registrano.com