The following content is translated from Chinese source by machine translation without post-editing.
Project Background
The 5th International Taoist Forum opened on September 24, 2023 in Maoshan, Jiangsu, China, the birthplace of the Shangqing School of Taoism. Shi Taifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Minister of the United Front Work Department, attended the opening ceremony of the forum and the founding ceremony of the World Taoist Federation, and delivered speeches respectively. This forum is hosted by the China Taoist Association and the China Religious and Cultural Exchange Association, and co organized by the Hong Kong Taoist Federation, the Macau Taoist Association, and the Taiwan Chinese Taoist Association. The theme is “Upholding Taoism and Virtue, Walking with the World”.
The forum consists of main activities such as the opening ceremony, the founding ceremony of the World Taoist Federation, the main forum, the television forum, two new media forums, five sub forums, the closing ceremony, as well as activities such as the prayer ceremony and the exhibition of Taoist culture. Tang Neng Translation successfully won the bid in 2020 to become the only official translation supplier of this Taoist Forum, providing full process Chinese and English simultaneous interpreting and on-site equipment services for all the above activities, as well as Chinese English life translation of nearly 40 foreign guests, and full process speech text Chinese English translation.
Project Challenges and Their Responses
The requirements of this project are very diverse, and the most special one is the opening ceremony held at the Chongxi Wanfu Palace in Maoshan. Due to the special site, the complexity of setting scenery has caused many problems for the project personnel who arrange simultaneous interpreting equipment on the site. Before the start of the project, the project staff of Tang Neng Translation held many meetings with customers offline through many field visits, and finally decided to connect the simultaneous interpreting host with the 4402 and wireless Bluetooth navigation headset to provide simultaneous interpreting services for this outdoor only project. During the field implementation of the project, we also encountered the situation that the original simultaneous interpreting room construction site was denied by the on-site director. Since there will be hundreds of performers waiting in the passageways on both sides of the stage, the operation of the simultaneous interpreting room will be affected. The originally planned sound control room was also redirected from the second floor roof to the audience seating area, overturning all plans on the day before the opening ceremony. Fortunately, Tang Neng’s project personnel were calm and calm, and cooperated with the client’s leadership to find a suitable spot room near the stage, change the original wiring plan, and coordinate the mobilization of simultaneous interpreting interpreters.
The particularity of the geographical environment also added difficulties to the arrangement of simultaneous interpreting facilities and audio equipment for the conference. Due to the location of the venue in the mountains and forests, and the opening ceremony being an all outdoor environment. Although the ecological environment is beautiful and various wild animals can be seen shuttling between the mountains and forests, it also brings a practical problem. The humidity on site is very high. If the equipment is installed and debugged one day in advance according to the usual plan, it may be damaged after a night of dew immersion and damage from wild animals, which may affect the normal operation of the opening ceremony the next day. So Tang Neng’s team arrived at the venue before dawn on the day of the opening ceremony. Without any lighting conditions, they worked overtime to complete the construction and commissioning of on-site simultaneous interpreting equipment, as well as the docking with audio facilities. In addition, there are over a thousand seats on site for the opening ceremony, and the venue is limited, making it impossible to register with real names and exchange for receivers like regular meetings. Tang Neng’s project management personnel completed the distribution and retrieval of over a thousand seat equipment on site in a very short period of time, without any loss or damage.
In addition, such large-scale projects require a lot of collaborative work. Our team’s staff accompanied the leaders twice to inspect the seven major venues located in different locations. As temporary staff, we need to recruit, interview, screen, organize two on-site training sessions and multiple online training sessions for life translators who have high requirements in all aspects. We also need to organize life translation drills every night for the first three days before the project starts. During the project process, due to various objective factors such as special arrangements and temporary changes in foreign guests’ schedules, the personnel arrangement and task requirements of translators change repeatedly. We constantly re screen and allocate translation tasks. During the event, we encounter different problems in accommodation, meals, transportation, and airport transfers 24 hours a day, and communicate with different line leaders for feedback and solutions.
Project Summary
Tang Neng finally successfully completed the translation task of the whole forum, and received unanimous praise from the leaders of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee and the Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Province: “Thanks to Tang Neng’s colleagues, translation teachers, on-site interpretation teachers, high-quality translation to ensure the quality of simultaneous interpreting, technical teachers install equipment in the dark, thank you, and have the opportunity to cooperate again.” The professional quality and high-level service of the service team throughout the whole process added a bright color to the event, and also contributed to the friendly exchanges between the Taoism community at home and abroad.
Post time: Dec-18-2025