The Ping•Ji Workshop performers, Diqi, Zhenji, Xiarixun, and Pingping (from left to right) in a recording studio. Photo: Cai Xianmin

By Du Qiongfang

Japanese cartoon characters are now playing their part in preserving the Shanghai dialect and making the language more popular than ever among the young and hip of Shanghai. For more than four years the group, Ping•Ji Workshop, has been posting Shanghainese language versions of Japanese cartoons, such as Slam Dunk, online. Currently there are about 200 clips in Shanghainese available on Tudou.com and more than half of them have been produced by Ping•Ji Workshop. The clips have attracted hundreds of fans, and while many of these young fans have grown up with these Japanese cartoons, watching animation in their local dialect is an entirely new experience.

Just for a laugh

The group behind these videos is made up of three men and a girl, all in their 20s and early 30s, who all hail from Shanghai. Pingping, his online name, 30, is the founder of this voice acting troupe, and has been interested in being a voice actor since childhood. Pingping became interested in voice acting through the work of his idol, Tong Zirong. Tong is one of China's most famous voice actors and is best known for dubbing French actor Alain Delon's voice in the 1975 Italian film Zorro, which was one of the first foreign films released on the Chinese Mainland after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and was seen by an estimated 70 million people in China. Even though Pingping works full-time for a Japanese company, he still retains his passion for voice acting. In 2005 he first began dubbing Japanese cartoons in Putonghua, and put the clips on the Internet which attracted the attention of other aspiring voice actors. One of them was a 22-year-old who goes by the online name of Zhenji. Together they created the website pingjivoice.com where Pingping and Zhenji posted their clips and invited netizens to comment on and discuss them. Pingping and Zhenji then began dubbing in Shanghainese in 2006 and many of their clips were of Japanese cartoons, as both are fans of Japanese animation and computer games. Zhenji told the Global Times that the pair started dubbing in Shanghainese as it was an easier way for them to show their sense of humor. "A lot of unique Shanghainese expressions are quite interesting, such as 'nei ce dai,' which literally means the inner pocket of a jacket. In Shanghainese, it is slang for someone who has talent that is not easily recognized by others," said Zhenji. "If we translate the Putonghua into Shanghainese, the cartoon is much funnier to people from Shanghai. We hope more young people will pay attention to maintaining Shanghainese after they watch our clips."

With the popularity of the clips growing on the Internet, more and more people expressed interest in joining the group. Xiarixun and Diqi (their online names) are the newest members of Ping•Ji Workshop. Unlike Pingping and Zhenji, Xiarixun and Diqi are professional voice actors. Xiarixun, 27, majored in Japanese at university and began working for a Japanese company after graduation. However, in her mid-20s she decided to pursue her dreams, so she quit her job and moved to Beijing to attend a voice acting school. After studying at the school for one year, she came back to Shanghai and started her career as a voice actress. Diqi, 26, graduated from Xie Jin Heng Tong Arts School, which is now part of the Shanghai Theater Academy. Currently he is in public relations, but also works as a voice actor part-time. Although Ping•Ji cannot provide salaries to Xiarixun and Diqi, they enjoy working with Pingping and Zhenji. "We want to do something that we really enjoy and we do not care much about the reward," said Xiarixun.

A long five minutes

The group does not dub entire episodes of cartoons, but chooses the more humorous scenes from episodes and dubs them into Shanghainese. "A whole episode is too long to put together, so we just select the best parts," said Zhenji, who added that it usually takes a whole day to create a five minute scene. The whole process from selecting a clip, to translating the dialogue into Shanghainese, to performing the voice acting, to putting the sound and the images together can only be accomplished through the combined efforts of the group. "Actually, the voice acting part is the easiest of the whole process. Translating and post-production are the most difficult," Zhenji told the Global Times. When each clip is put together, the voice actors translate their own lines and a project leader is nominated. The project leader is responsible for the coordination of the translations done by the four members. "Since the translations are done by different people, the different lines may not gel together so well. The project leader has to make sure that the whole clip is consistent," said Zhenji.

To make the dialogue more interesting and to use more colloquial Shanghainese, the Ping•Ji Workshop regularly watches local Shanghai comedian Zhou Libo who is well-known for his use of Shanghainese in his routines and take notes of interesting and unique Shanghainese expressions people use in daily life. "Every one of us takes a small notebook every day and writes down interesting words and phrases we hear," said Zhenji. When the voice actors translate dialogue into Shanghainese, they try their best to include as many colloquial words as possible for the sake of preserving certain Shanghainese expressions. "Some Shanghainese expressions have their history. If we can keep them, they will be helpful in preserving history," said Xiarixun. "A lot of the earliest expressions coined in Shanghainese come from foreign languages. There were a lot of nannies working for foreign families in the past, as they could not speak foreign languages well, they picked up some foreign words and mixed them with Shanghainese. Like the expression yangjingbang, which in Shanghainese means 'not so good English.'"

Help wanted

Although Xiarixun and Diqi are the only members who have received professional voice training, Pingping and Zhenji, have a lot of practical experience in voice acting. "Actually, the voice acting part is the easiest part for us. The tone, the intonation, the shape of mouth, these are the basics of voice acting. It is usually not a problem for us," said Pingping. Since Ping•Ji Workshop has only four members, occasionally actors will have to play different characters in the same clip. "We also welcome fans of our clips to provide voices. We are glad to provide them with opportunities to practice voice acting. Xiarixun and I started our professional careers doing voices for small parts. We know very well the feeling of wanting to get a start in this business," said Diqi.

As only Zhenji works full-time in the voice acting troupe, (Pingping continues to work for a Japanese company while Xiarixun and Diqi have other jobs as voice actors), it is difficult for the four of them to find a time to meet. Usually, they record their own parts separately after work and put the dialogue together during the post-production process. "Our videos on the Internet have attracted a lot of professional volunteers who help us with the sound mixing," said Diqi. "Some professional music workshops, such as myvox.cn, which produces music downloads, let us use their professional recording and sound editing equipment."

Since the group provides their clips for free on the Internet, the group is becoming more and more popular among young Shanghainese, however, it is increasingly difficult for the group to afford to continue producing clips. In order to keep the group together, Xiarixun and Diqi have found some professional voice acting work for the other two members of the group. "At the moment, we have to do commercial work to make money to support our project," said Diqi. "We do this because we really love this job."

The group also lacks the expert knowledge to make their clips sound professional. It is not only difficult for the group to find original sound effects for the clips, but it is also hard for them to remove background sounds and other interference. "None of us have majored in sound editing. Volunteers who know how to use the software are in urgent need," said Pingping.

Language preservation

Over the past several years, programs in which performers or hosts speak Shanghainese have become more and more popular in Shanghai, Bai Wanqing, who has been referred to as the Chinese Oprah, and comedian Zhou Libo, are two of the more famous personalities who use Shanghainese. While these programs are popular among older locals, there are still concerns that the younger generation is speaking less and less Shanghainese. More and more elementary school students are speaking Putonghua as a first language, as Shanghainese is not taught at schools and they use Putonghua at home. Some local language experts worry that Shanghainese will die out since the younger generation is not speaking it regularly. A lot of work has begun to protect the dialect and catelogue the language.  In March 2010,  the National Linguistics Work Committee of China and the Linguistics Work Committee of Shanghai started recording Shanghainese and putting the recordings in a vocal database.

"We tend to choose new pronunciation, because most of the audience of our clips are young Shanghainese. They are more used to it," said Xiarixun, "If the Shanghainese database collects the old pronunciation of Shanghainese, we hope to contribute to the collection by offering new pronunciation." Qian Nairong, a professor from Shanghai University who has been researching Shanghainese for many years, is very pleased with the voice acting troupe's work. "The protection and longevity of Shanghainese depends on the younger generations," said Qian. "It is not necessary to return to the dated expressions and pronunciation of Shanghainese, the language which is widely used by most people at the moment is what we should protect."