[Glossika] The Glossika Thread

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
41

After having read this forum with interest over the last few days I would like to put in some words of my own now that both my name and the name of the company I work for have come up.

Above quote was without an identifiable sender, so I would appreciate this person to step forwards and disclose his/her identity.

My name is Marc, and I indeed work for MTI Communications. This is indeed a legally registered, tax-paying company. The same applies to both of our subsiduaries. To my knowledge none of the people that are in the above threads are working for our company, but obviously they are awre of our company, and I respect their postings, even though not all of them are as nice as I would like to see them. (and no, no action, legal or otherwise, will be taken against these individuals)

As Ironlady pointed out our office is indeed located above Gold’s Gym on the 13th floor, and we cordially invite any professionals looking for either free-lance/full-time/part-time employment, and/or potential clients to stop by and visit us any time.

For the record I can also collaborate that “Hartzell” is indeed the real name of Mr. Hartzell. As most professionals in Taiwan know Mr. Hartzell is a well-know and very good human rights activist in Taiwan. (as well as completey legal; sorry Glossika)

Is it perhaps a good idea that all people involved get together for a meeting? Our company will gladly make our conference room available for such a meeting.

We welcome an honest an open discussion and invite anybody to disclose in public any “threats” either myself or the company I work for, have made.

Best regards,

Marc

42

[quote=“ironlady”]
I for one wasn’t bothered by either one of the crew from Glossika at the last Happy hour…er, unless you count The Mysterious “Fiona Chu” who introduced herself to me as a “freelance translator” wanting to know about translation in Taipei. [/quote]

wow, she talked to you?

43

If I didn’t have my thesaurus, I might say she “talked to me”. However, a more precise description would be “attempted to pump me for information”, mostly likely in search of something ‘incriminating’ in her mind. Of course this is all my own conjecture, but golly, I’ve seen more coincidences the past week than I have in the last six or seven years.

As I said before: lay off, folks, and lay off ALL the other freelancers as well! My Segue handle is not “powder puff”!

44

wow, so that was her. I talked to her for a few minutes, but the shifty eyes made me feel a little nervous. I just wandered off, wondering what had happened. You know, in person, she only seems like half a psycho.

45

Gosh is “Guest” Mark T a bore or what???
:unamused: I would have thought he could have been a little more funny than his reply about Hartzell being Richard’s real name.

Obviously lacks a houmor bone :laughing:

46

at least he appears to be an honest guy doing honest work… which is more than i can say for some posters on sEgue.

47

Never said he wasn’t an honest guy doing honest work. And exactly what Posters would you be talking about my little Monkbucket???

48

apologies for an unwarranted and unprovoked moment of sarcasm.
:blush:

49

Hi, Ironlady,

With all due respect, are you sure you aren’t being a little paranoid?

And if you aren’t, what on earth do these people want from you? That is really weird–going undercover at cocktail parties, trying to get info from you. After reading your credentials, I can only assume you are poised to get better work, and they aren’t. But you’ve said before you were a student and not working.

You’re not the first to have their house searched or get burned because you exercised your right to free speech against a small-potato foreign business (been there, done that), but spying on Ironlady at a cocktail party really takes the cake!

50

Yes, absolutely. I am certain of the lady’s identity in the case of the Oriented function, and I am equally certain that the lady in question was attempting to misrepresent it to me.

While I would NEVER say on a public forum that the lady in question, the one who spoke to me at the ORIENTED function, would do such a thing, there IS a certain lady (we’ll call her “Ms Zhang” for now) who spends her leisure time calling up translators in Taipei, offering them work, and then arranging for the police and/or tax authorities to visit them or contact their landlords. This has been documented in a number of cases, and I am in communication with the translators who have been approached by “Ms Zhang” in this manner. I daresay Ms. Zhang may not be fully familiar with the methods and means of tracing people’s conduct in the modern world of the 21st century.

But all this is conjecture, of course. Perhaps someone might like to lift the plot line to write a spy novel involving translators in Taipei. It would make a passable late-night movie, I suppose.

When unrelated events happen in a short period of time, a person who is given to investigation and reflection, and who knows computers, can find patterns among them in a remarkably short period of time, especially if that person has little else in the manner of pressing business, being a grad student with no translation work to get out on deadline! :laughing:

I am not in fact certain as to what these people “want”, but as I said before, terrorists don’t always say what they “want”; they don’t always know precisely what they “want”, they just want to do things to make themselves feel powerful. I have no clients to give them, I am not making money out of their piece of the translation pie, and it is very easy for me to disprove their libelous statements that I was “refused employment” with them as I have copies of all their communications to me and mine to them. What puzzles me is why they would go after others. At least in my case there was an imagined slight based on a single post on ORIENTED; in the case of others, there would seem to be no provocation whatsoever other than pure malice.

Well, perhaps they would be so kind as to post an explanation. I’m sure all the viewers would greatly appreciate it. Certainly as time goes on and more and more bother is added to my life as a result of the unscrupulous actions of certain people, I grow less and less inclined to let things go without an apology or any further loss of face to the parties involved (such as demands for published apologies in major newspapers, for example).
[color=red]At any rate, I am far more concerned that they cease this kind of reprehensible behavior toward ANY freelancer on the Taipei market now and in the future[/color].

51

Sorry Bassman and Monkbucket: I don’t have a houmor bone; just got a humor bone like most other people I know.

But as soon as the Glossika folks have confirmed if and when they would like to attend this little gathering in our office, I’ll let you know…

And of course, both of you please do attend, the more people, the better.
(and yes, I’ll try to do more humorous)

:wink:

52

If the folks from Glossika show up at a conference like that, I’d wager we’ll see some humor…but count me in. You can reassure them that my religion forbids me from actually punching anyone. :smiley:

53

Please elaborate!

54

If “Liebling” shows up wearing the tiara, give me a call and I’ll be there pronto. :mrgreen:

55

Please elaborate![/quote]

Well, OK. Once, a certain person wrote a certain critical article in a small, now-defunct magazine about a certain business (but not giving names). This certain business then called the cops, and they came to someone’s apartment. Of course, as in the case of Ironlady, they didn’t find any misconduct. Certain expats seem to think their professional conduct or business services are not to be criticized by other foreigners (while the Taiwanese or anything Taiwan-related is fair game). Flicka does not agree.

I’ve learned these things work themselves out over time. (In other words, God gets the little bastards in the end.) In this case, their business is now a laughingstock.

56

With posts like that Flicka, I’m sure the bad boys will be quaking in their boots.

57

Not much of an elaboration :frowning:

58

Not much of an elaboration :frowning:[/quote]

OK, a friend and I wrote this joke of an article that ended up in a fanzine once put out about 5 years ago. It ripped on two foreign-run small businesses here. We aren’t sure which is the one that sent the cops to my friend’s house – was it that coffee shop named after an island or was it that monthly Taiwan magazine that ratted on us? Doesn’t matter, both of them are tacky as hell. A cop later visited me at my house too, but instead of questioning my friend for running an illegal business he just played with my cat for 20 minutes and left.

Monkey – My point is that these idiots set themselves up for their own day of reckoning, or were you just joking and I am being too uppity? :wink:

59

Well, what we’ve got going on just now is [color=red]a pattern of harassment [/color]against translators, which [color=red]just happens to coincide [/color]with my being threatened with a libel suit by the nice folks at Glossika. There is also other evidence which I will not go into here as I may need it and will use it in the future if these people don’t wake up, smell the coffee and LAY OFF OF EVERYONE!

The whole thing is really quite ridiculous in both cases. If you’re a legitimate business with a good clientele, the comments of one person can hardly lead to your downfall; on the other hand, if you’re a little, er, sensitive about your business practices, then I guess attacking innocent people comes to seem like a good idea.

it’s interesting that foreigners should be playing this game (although in the case of Glossika, one partner is Chinese, although I believe from Shanghai originally, so perhaps it’s more understandable). Usually the face game and “I’ll sic the police on your business” (whether or not there IS a business on which to sic 'em!) is a game the Chinese play, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because most Westerners are used to the idea of penalties devolving on the heads of those who make specious accusations.

The coffee shop named after an island – maybe I’ve been in Taiwan too long, but I can only think of the one near Shida, starts with “J” – is that the one you mean? And I didn’t know it was foreign-owned, or do I have the wrong one?? :? :?:

60

Frelance translators,
I’ve followed this whole thread and I’ve just got to ask: Is this indicative of the freelance translation field in Taiwan?

What would you tell those of us that one day want to work as translators?

What rights and legal protections are there for people who work freelance?