OVAL OFFICE FENG SHUI

Bill Clinton's memoir “My Life” has turned out to be a
big seller (see the poll above). Even, or especially,
in other countries. But there may more to it than
thrilling tales of Georgetown, Oxford, Yale, and all
things Hillary. Turns out the Chinese translation has
a few differences.

According to the Chinese version of “My Life”, even as
a child, Bill Clinton felt an overwhelming love and
admiration for Chinese culture and politics, and
considered rulers like Mao Zedong and "Chief
Architect" Deng Xiaoping his intellectual mentors.

Original sentences like "I was concerned about China's
continued suppression of basic freedoms" were
translated out, while new more enlightening passages
added, such as:

"It was from my uncle Buddy that I first heard that
China was one of the world's most ancient cultures,
that in ancient times its technology was already very
advanced, and that very early on it had produced the
Four Great Inventions. Take, for example, the cannons
that were tested in Buddy's munitions factory.
Originally, gunpowder was invented by the Chinese. Not
only that, the compass, printing, and paper were also
great creations of the Chinese people."

It seems the Chinese are not big on Clinton’s famous
wordiness. The notoriously very long opening sentence
of Mr. Clinton's version, which takes 48 words to
describe his birth, reads:

"The town of Hope, where I was born, has very good
feng shui."

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