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Translating the Pats
An MIT student brings football to China
By Sally Atwood

It’s October, and the New England Patriots have just defeated the Buffalo Bills, sacked their quarterback seven times, and tied the record for the longest winning streak in National Football League history. So how do you explain that to Chinese readers who have never even heard of the NFL, let alone seen a football game? Over food truck fare in the Stata Center lobby, Tian He ’06 admits it’s quite a challenge.

He, who moved from China to the United States when he was 10, was hired last August to translate stories about the Pats into Mandarin for the Chinese section of the team’s website. But the stories’ reliance on football jargon made the job almost impossible, so in the wee hours, usually of a Tuesday morning, He composes original pregame and postgame stories in Chinese and, after vetting English translations with the Patriots main office, posts them to the Web. He tries to explain the game using soccer terms, which the Chinese understand, but he’s also helped by the NFL’s new Chinese website, which describes the rules of the game and provides a glossary of football terms.

The NFL is hoping to cultivate millions of new fans in China. To that end, a 2006 preseason game will be played there. Patriots owner Robert Kraft has business interests in the country, so it is not surprising that his team is the first to woo prospective Chinese fans. Fred Kirsch, director of interactive media for the Patriots, came to the Chinese Students Club at MIT to find a translator. Kirsch selected He, a Patriots fan with a broad knowledge of the game, from among a dozen MIT students.

The Patriots have given He tremendous latitude in developing the site. “I’m trying to think about how we can hook the Chinese fans,” says He, who is glad to be practicing his Mandarin in preparation for a career in China. Could this assignment lead to a career as a Chinese sports journalist? “Who knows,” He says. “I’m just living one article at a time.” In the meantime, he is helping to open the largest market in the world to the NFL—and to a slice of American culture.