Seb and the City

Lost in Translation

The Viennese style magazine Indie which was started by two friends of mine just published its first English issue. They have been pretty successful in the German speaking world and feel confident enough to move on to the international stage. The English version is a straight translation from the German version. I wrote a funny story about my personal experiences with some of the planet's worst hotels, and it is the first time I see one of my articles in English.

Actually I don't like the English version, the humor doesn't work as well. It has to with the fact that it is a totally literal translation. But judge for yourself!
German: Download allesinbegriffen.pdf
English: Download allinclusive.pdf

I know translating is difficult. At profil I had to translate articles by English speaking writers once in a while and the word-by-word translation always sucked. You have to rewrite the whole thing because languages have different structures and rhythms.

Thanks by the way for all the encouraging comments you left at my last post. I'll keep on writing, with low frequency though. Saturday I'm off to Nicaragua!

Busy

I'm busy with all kinds of things, not much time to update this blog. Should I shut it down? How many of you guys actually read this? Leave a comment below! I'll continue writing if the response is enthusiastic enough.

Here are links to some of my latest stories, by the way:

Die Zeit just published my story on three-year-old US kids learning Chinese. Rich New Yorkers want their children to have an edge when China dominates the world, which probably will happen by the time they have grown up.

For profil I did a story about Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's fight over Harlem. Until now Hillary could take the African-American vote for granted thanks to the popularity of her husband Bill among blacks. (Some people call Bill Clinton "the first black US president".) But now Obama is making inroads: Download p10_090_USA.pdf

America is turning green. Read my profil story: Download p06_066_usa.pdf

For Red Bull's Red Bulletin I wrote a story about crazy Bode Miller: Download red_bulletin_kitzbuhel_samstag_27. Jänner 2007.pdf

I'm off to Costa Rica in a few hours - volcanoes, beaches, holidays! Will be back in ten days.

Viennese Opera Ball

I went to the Viennese Opera Ball in New York at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Friday. Tickets are ridiculously expensive - starting at 750 Dollars - but I got a press accreditation and had Alessandra signed up as my photographer. The ball has been running for over 50 years, and it is an Americanized version of the original Opernball in Vienna, including celebrities (Miss Universe, Sarah Ferguson), dancers, a cart with live horses and lots of kitsch.

Being (or posing as) journalists, we were supposed to stay in the press area, away from the fun, the food and the drinks. Of course, we didn't do that and kept on sneaking into the party. This led to two huge fights with the ball's PR people, but in the end we won. Somehow balls always end up to be a lot of fun, despite the stuck-up setting.

Home Alone

Short political update: President Bush is pretty much alone with his plans to send additional troops to Iraq. Even some Republicans are now turning against him. The presidential race 2008 has been kicked off, there at least 12 candidates already. The frontrunners on the Democrat side are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, on the Republican side Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. One of them will probably have to deal with the Iraq disaster. The commander of US troops in Iraq estimates it will take "two or three years" to gain the upper hand over there. By then Bush will be history.

Read my profil article from last week about this: Download p04_080_bush.pdf

Metametablogging

I have been declared Pony Pal 4 Life by Princess Sparkle Pony! Ok, that needs a little bit of explanation: Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog is committed to the surveillance of Condoleezza Rice's hairdo. The Princess is also utterly fascinated by the admittedly unusual fashion sense of Austria's foreign minister Ursula Plassnik (hint: BIG scarves). I mentioned this in profil magazine, which in turn made Princess Sparkle Pony mention me and my short article on the blog, which in turn leads me to write this post. Welcome to the self-referential world of blogs!

My first Op-Ed

Die Presse is arguably Austria's best daily newspaper, although I generally don't agree with its conservative viewpoints. Today it published my first op-ed, i.e. guest opinion article. I summarize the main findings of my book on Austrian companies and corruption in Eastern Europe and criticise the Austrian government for turning a blind eye. Of course the Austrian government has little incentive to rein in its own companies, just as the Italian government doesn't want to hurt Italian companies abroad. So I guess this is a problem that can only be solved at the level of the European Union.

Update: Here is the pdf of my op-ed, including a photo of me by Moritz Schell: Download wie_geschmiert.pdf

Publishing My First Book

When I was in Vienna over Christmas, I used the opportunity to present my first book, "Die mit den Wölfen heulen". It is about Austrian companies and corruption in Eastern Europe. I wrote it as my diploma thesis in economics some time ago. Now LIT Verlag decided to publish it because my findings are pretty interesting.

For the book I interviewed 50 managers of Austrian companies that have invested in the Czech Republic or Romania. I asked them (anonymously) how they deal with corruption and showed that they behave just in the same way as local companies - bribing whenever they consider it necessary.

The press conference I gave in Vienna's Café Prückel was a weird experience for me: For the first time I was sitting on the "other side", facing the journalists, and I felt powerless because I didn't have any control over what they would do with my words.

The coverage I got was great, though: There were big articles about my book in Die Presse, Kurier, Wirtschaftsblatt and Wiener Zeitung. OE1, Austria's most serious radio station, did a report as well as PulsTV, a local TV station. You can check out the article by Die Presse and the piece by OE1 online.

The Death of the Neocons

In profil's big and beautiful year-end-issue I wrote an article about the fall from grace of the so-called neocons. These were the people in George W. Bush's government who pushed for bringing democracy to the Middle East through violent means. This idea seems pretty dead now - luckily, as many might say.

In my article I argue that this is not necessarily good news, though. The disaster in Iraq might lead Americans to pull back from interventions altogether, and there is nobody else to step into their place (certainly not the European Union, despite all its rhetorics). The people in Darfur are suffering the consequences already. Read my article: Download pj52_092_neocons_1.pdf

Being a US correspondent

Yesterday I spoke at a panel discussion, at CUNY, the City University of New York. CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism had invited me and some other foreign journalists to speak to their students about our experiences with covering the US, trying to understand this country while fighting our editors who know even less than we do.

The journalism school was impressive: It is brand new - the first classes started in September - and better equipped than any newspaper that I have ever seen: There are TV and radio studios for the students to use, and every one of them gets a free Macintosh laptop. When I saw this, I wished I had ever studied journalism. But then again, I think lowly of studying journalism because I made my career without one single theoretical lesson in journalism.

Ban is a funny guy

Wednesday morning I went to a breakfest in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in midtown Manhattan. About 200 New York business people were attending to witness the first public appearance of Ban Ki-Moon, the new general secretary of the United Nation and successor to Kofi Annan. Mr Ban (not "Mr Moon", and with an "a" as in Bahn, not as in "to ban" as he explained winkingly) is generally thought to be pretty boring. But he was surprisingly funny and won over the audience with his jokes. (Somehow I never expect Asian people to be funny, but maybe that's just a weird kind of racism.) He promised to make all the heads of government and heads of state that descend annually on Manhattan for the UN general assembly ride the New York subway. New Yorkers hate the general assembly for all the traffic chaos the visitors create with their fancy limousines and big escorts.